A culture of impunity over custodial deaths

The death of 29-year-old Francis Durage Ishara Harsha Kumara, a resident of Moonamalewatte in Kiriwaththuduwa, inside the Homagama Police Station is yet another grim reminder of the State’s enduring failure to end custodial deaths. His death adds to a long and disturbing list of individuals, who have died in the custody of the Police or prison authorities. While the tens of thousands of young lives lost to counter-terrorism operations and armed conflict are still yet to be resolved the persistent custodial deaths in peacetime are a horrible reminder of a broken system which fails to protect those who are in the State’s custody. Worse, there have been instances in which such violence appears to have been tolerated, if not tacitly encouraged, within law enforcement itself.

For decades, custodial deaths and extrajudicial killings have followed a depressingly familiar script. Suspects are allegedly shot while being taken to recover hidden weapons, or are said to have attempted to escape or attacked their escorts. The familiar explanation that a suspect was killed, while being taken to “show weapons” has become almost a euphemism for summary execution. Such accounts, repeated with remarkable consistency, invite serious questions about their credibility. Yet, despite the frequency of these incidents, prosecutions and convictions have been conspicuously rare, while meaningful institutional reforms remain elusive.

The problem is not simply one of individual officers exceeding their authority. It points to a deeply entrenched culture of impunity. During the violence of 1987–89 in the South, and throughout the civil war in the North and East, enforced disappearances, torture and killings by State actors became widespread. The end of the war in 2009, offered an opportunity to establish a new relationship between the State and its citizens, grounded in the rule of law and respect for human rights. That opportunity was squandered. Custodial abuse has continued, demonstrating that these practices were never confined to the extraordinary circumstances of war.

More recently, reports suggesting that some senior Police officers may have profited from arrangements to provide ‘protection’ against custodial deaths. This points to an even more disturbing possibility that the abuse of State power has become a business. If established, such allegations would indicate not merely individual misconduct, but the corruption of the very institutions entrusted with protecting citizens.

Countries that extradite suspects to Sri Lanka must be confident that those individuals will receive due process and remain protected by the law. When extradited persons subsequently die in custody under questionable circumstances, confidence in judicial and law enforcement guarantees is inevitably undermined.

At least in the case of Ishara Harsha Kumara, it is slightly encouraging that the Police officers accused have been arrested. However, at the same time it is troubling that the accused Police officer has a long history of abused and as punishment had only been transferred from one Police station to another. It finally took a death of a young man for the police to act against this Police officer.

The Police cannot be permitted to operate above the law. A suspect’s alleged criminality does not extinguish the right to life, nor does it grant law enforcement officers a licence to administer punishment without trial. If the Government is serious about restoring public confidence in its institutions, it must end the tacit acceptance of custodial violence. The death of Harsha Kumara must not become yet another statistic, followed by another forgotten investigation.