Azath Salley case: Judgment reserved for 2 Dec.

The Colombo High Court has concluded the hearing of former Governor Azath Salley’s case and announced that the judgment is reserved for 2 December.

The case came up before High Court Judge Amal Ranarajah, while Vasantha Fernando appeared on behalf of prosecution and President’s Counsel Maithri Gunaratne appeared for the accused.

According to the indictment filed by the Attorney General, it was alleged that Salley had said, “Our law is for us. Your law is for you. We decide right and wrong. If the Qur’an, Emergency and Sharia are our law, we will respect it and not the law of the land. We have no law other than the Qur’an and the Prophet’s ‘Emergency’.”

Salley has been indicted by the Attorney General in the Colombo High Court on two counts of violating the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the United Nations Convention on Civil and Political Rights by inciting sectarian strife.

Earlier Colombo Chief Magistrate Buddhika C. Ragala observed that if the entire unedited version of the press conference had been published, it would have been clear that the suspect had expressed an idea of building peace among the people to rise up as one nation.