SC orders compensation to torture victims

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2001, 19:41 GMT]
The Supreme Court Monday directed the State to pay 500,000 rupees as compensation to a Vavuniya Tamil youth, stating that his fundamental rights (FR) had been violated by the security forces when he being detained at Vavuniya army camp.

In this FR case, the petitioner Subramaniam Kannan of Poonthottam, Vavuniya, stated that he was arrested by the Sri Lanka Army in July last year. He was detained in the Vavuniya army camp for some period. During the period of detention he was subjected to severe torture by the security forces.

The SC was told that the petitioner is now being detained at Kalutara prison. A three-member bench of the Supreme Court comprised Justice Mark Fernando, Justice C.V.Vigneswaran and Justice Asoka de Silva made the above order.

In another FR case, the same bench of the Supreme Court Monday directed the State to pay forty thousand rupees to the petitioner Paramasivam Rajeevan of Tellipallai, Jaffna, stating his fundamental rights had been violated by the Police.

The petitioner stated in his FR case that the Colombo Police arrested him last July in Colombo. He claimed that under detention, the Police subjected him to severe assault and torture.