Radio announcer who committed suicide inside Matara jail

Radio announcer who committed suicide inside Matara jail

An inmate of Matara Prison has hanged himself last morning (19) within the prison. During the period he functioned as a radio announcer of a popular provincial radio channel in Matara he had faced allegations of having tricked a 14 year old schoolgirl who had

been present there to appear for a children's programme in which instance he is supposed to have after taking her inside had allegedly raped the girl.

He was found guilty of this offence in courts and on the sentence given about a fortnight before had been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for a period of 12 years and 3 months. The convict who spent his time in despair with the thought that he was to spend a long period of time inside the prison and about the difficulties he would be called upon to encounter by society in the future had tried to hang himself with a piece of cloth by attaching it to a rod of a high elevation last morning inside the toilet in Matara Prison somewhere between 8 - 9. In that instance a fellow prisoner who had heard his shouting had notified the authorities. But by the time he was dispatched to Matara Hospital he had already passed away.

It is one Hewa Maddumage Gamini Jayatunga, a 49 year old person living in Watagedera, Nandugala who had committed suicide in this manner. A team of officers with Matara Headquarters Inspector of Police, Mr. Mahinda Caldera who are involved in conducting further inquiries.