Presidential pardon for Royal Park killer ... when victimized party says "NO'!

Presidential pardon for Royal Park killer ...

when victimized party says "NO'!

Shrimantha Jude Anthony who was sentenced to death having being found guilty of strangled and killed a 19 year old girl at Royal Park luxury housing complex and had followed it up by crushing her skull and subsequently pushing her down from above was given presidential pardon yesterday (9). Shrimantha was detained at Kuruvita prisons and after being so being pardoned by president has left yesterday, prison sources said. 

President Maithripala Sirisena has said at a public meeting some weeks before that the convict was at
an immature age of 19 years when he committed this crime and that he has now reached the age of 33 years and has even completed his university degree and therefore before his position comes to an end, he would be pardoned. Subsequently, the victimised party who came to hear about this has become agitated and deceased Yvonne's sister who represents the innocent party released a media announcement condemning president's statement. What she said was that members of Shrimantha's family who belong to the elite class has thrown about their money and saved him. 

After committing this heinous murder he was confined to prison only four and a half years. There had been a romance between Carolyn, sister of deceased Yvonne and a problem has flared up between her and killer Shrimantha Jude in the month of June 2005. The root cause of this issue was in fact that deceased Yvonne has sneaked something to her sister and in a fit of anger has murdered the victim in an inhuman manner. Shrimantha who has run behind the victim from 23rd floor of Royal Park housing complex has finally managed to get at her and had after pushing her down had dashed her head on the cement floor till her skull was crushed. Later in order to give the impression that she has fallen from above has pushed her down from the building. Her body was thus found from the 19th floor, it is stated in police records. 

According to post-mortem records released by court, it was reported that the skull has been crushed into 64 pieces. Shrimantha Jude who engaged in such an inhuman act of murder after a lengthy trial over the murder was found guilty and was thus sentenced to death by high court judge, Colombo in the year 2012. Though he has appealed against the verdict, he was once again imposed the death penalty in 2014 by appeal court. Letters of applause were published those days of confirming the death penalty on the killer at a time when there were not even CCTV recordings because of skillful and clever lawyers. 

After it was announced that president Maithripala Sirisena was to pardon the murderer, Carolyn Johnson the sister of victim Yvonne Johnson has stated in her page in facebook that the killer's home people are using their powers and finances to have him released. The question she has posed is how would someone feel if something like this would happen to his or her family, a sister or somebody else. The said context of her comment is as follows:

"Though our father is a Swedish national, my mother is a Sri Lankan. We were brought up in Colombo. You may have heard of the news about my 19 year old sister who was brutally killed in 2005 in Colombo. My sister was a young girl who spent her life very happily. She was a lovable character who like all other girls was filled with dreams and hopes and spent a closely-knit life with trustworthy friends and who cared for them. She was a student who was studying fashion designing and was a very good sister for that matter. 

This was not something that happened in a fit of temper. This is a contemplated instance of murder. This killer has a history about his character from schooldays itself. We are pleading for justice throughout 15 years. His family had been trying to bribe to people in the top-rung while we are battling throughout 15 years. I wish to remind people who try to throw a murder under the carpet for the sake of money that you got only blood-smeared money. Even upto date he has not cared to ask for forgiveness for his beastly behaviour. 

This judgement was not something we anticipated. He was trying to scrape through justice across wealth, power and connections. In this context I am mostly amazed about non-sensical matters brought forward by president. I welcome to think whether this is the same response if this happened to one's own sister.