Sri Lanka's top court has ordered a compensation of one million rupees (about US$ 9,630) to the family of a 36-year-old man who was tortured to death while he was detained in jail for allegedly stealing two bunches of bananas. 

The sum is the biggest amount being awarded to a torture victim in the country's history.

In a judgment on July 26, the Supreme Court found that Lamahewage Lal Meddagoda was severely beaten, cruelly treated and dead within 48 hours after being remanded in the Negombo Prison in November 2002.

The court blamed the officer-in-charge, chief jailer and superintendent of prisons at the Negombo Prison for dereliction of duties. The three failed to prevent the assault on the victim by some jail officers and were responsible for the infringement of the victim's fundamental rights guaranteed under the constitution, the court said.

The court ordered the state to pay 925,000 rupees and the three leading officials of the Negombo Prison each 25,000 rupees as compensation to the victim's wife and three children.

However, the perpetrators in the case have yet to be prosecuted and punished. The Asian Human Rights Commission has urged the attorney general of Sri Lanka to take immediate action to prosecute those jail officers who are responsible for the torture and death of the victim under the Convention Against Torture Act, Act No. 22 of 1994.

The victim was arrested by officers from the Seeduwa Police Station on November 5, 2002 for allegedly stealing two bunches of bananas and was remanded by a magistrate to the Negombo Prison on the next day.

The Supreme Court heard that the victim was handcuffed, shackled, beaten mercilessly and tied to an iron door during custody. "The deceased was a father of three minor children and the treatment meted out to him while he was at the Negombo Prision has painted a gruesome picture where a
hapless prisoner was brutally tortured and left alone tied to an iron door to draw his last breath," Justice Shirani Bandaranayake said in the verdict.

Justice Bandaranayake said assault on a prisoner by jail officers, who are officials of the state, must be considered to be "an especially grave form of ill treatment". "This indicates that the officers concerned have exploited the vulnerability of the victim," she said.

"It is paramount importance that the lives of the prisoners are safeguarded. Although there should be discipline and order that should be maintained with firmness, such discipline cannot invoke punishments, which are inhuman and violative of Article 11 of the Constitution," the judge said.