Sri Lanka to repatriate 5 Pakistanis on death row for drug offences

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena today said he would initiate talks with Pakistan to send back five Pakistani nationals sentenced to death in the island nation for drug trafficking.

Sirisena's remarks come a month after he had said Sri Lanka would go ahead with implementing the death penalty on drug dealers, ending a near-half century moratorium on capital punishment.

"I will talk to the new government in Pakistan to send them back to their country," the President said in Jaffna today.

Drug trafficking is punishable by death in Sri Lanka.

The five Pakistanis are among 18 people on death row for drug offenses. Police claimed the 18 convicts ran a drug business from prison.

President Sirisena had last month told his Cabinet that he was "ready to sign the death warrants" of repeat drug offenders.

Sri Lanka's last hanging took place in June 1976. Since then successive presidents have refused to sign death warrants to hang convicts.

Sirisena had taken the decision despite Sri Lanka becoming a party to a UN moratorium on death penalty in 2016.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)