Civil society organisations from across the island have condemned the Sri Lankan president’s pardon of a soldier who was convicted for massacring Tamils, stating that “power has been abused and justice has been forsaken”.

The power to pardon as used in Sri Lanka is just another way the State arbitrarily discriminates against Tamils, a Jaffna-based think-tank has said. In a statement condemning the release of a Sri Lankan soldier Sunil Ratnayake, convicted of massacring Tamils, the Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research said the route to justice must be an international process.

“The conviction of Ratnayake was a rare exception to the rule of impunity for crimes committed by State forces in Sri Lanka and his pardon is a reminder that even those rare exceptions are not permitted by the ethnocratic state,” the organisation said. 

A cross-party group of British parliamentarians, including several former ministers, have urged the Foreign Secretary to make progress on an international justice mechanism to achieve accountability in Sri Lanka, following the pardoning of a Sri Lankan soldier convicted for the murder of 8 Tamil civilians.

In a letter to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, 11 MPs and one member of the House of Lords said they were deeply disappointed by reports of the soldier [Sunil Ratnayake’s] release.

The Tamil National Party People’s Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam condemned the Presidential pardon issued to Sergeant Sunil Rathnayake and said that “nothing can be achieved through the Sri Lanka’s judiciary or its internal mechanisms.”

Rathnayake, was sentenced to death for killing eight Tamil Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Mirusuvil, Jaffna on December 2000, after being convicted in June 2015 and had his sentence upheld in April 2019 at Sri Lanka’s supreme court.

Lawyer, human rights advocate and former Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, Ambika Satkunanathan, questioned the basis for the presidential pardon of Sunil Rathnayake and the legitimacy of the process, and used the case to underline the challenges Tamil families’ face in holding perpetrators accountable and obtain justice.

A Sinhala Buddhist monk has praised Sri Lanka’s pardon of a soldier who was convicted over the massacre of Tamil civilians, calling it “delightful news”.

Buddhist monk Medille Pannaloka stated that Sri Lanka’s defence secretary Kamal Gunaratne, who is also accused of overseeing war crimes, called him personally to inform him of Staff Sergeant Sunil Rathnayake’s pardon.

The US Acting Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia has condemned Sri Lanka’s pardon of a soldier who was convicted over the massacre of Tamils, calling it “deeply troubling”.

In a tweet on Saturday, Alice Wells went on to state that “justice, accountability, and reconciliation are needed for long-term peace”

The release of Sunil Ratnayake, after he was convicted for the murder of 8 Tamil civilians, has been widely condemned by Tamil political parties and organisations.

Former Chief Minister of Northern Province in Sri Lanka, C.V. Wigneswaran, slammed the Presidential pardon and release of convicted criminal Sergeant Sunil Ratnayake, referring to it as a “political act” rather than made in response in the best interests of the COVID-19 epidemic.