3. Enforced Disappearance etc.

Official English translation. Where it differs from the Sinhala or Tamil text, the Act itself says which text prevails.

(1)

Any person who, being a public officer or acting in an official capacity, or any person acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State -

(a)

arrests, detains, wrongfully confines, abducts, kidnaps, or in any other form deprives any other person of such person’s liberty; and

(b)

(i)

refuses to acknowledge such arrest, detention, wrongful confinement, abduction, kidnapping, or deprivation of liberty; or

(ii)

conceals the fate of such other person; or

(iii)

fails or refuses to disclose or is unable without valid excuse to disclose the subsequent or present whereabouts of such other person, shall be guilty of the offence of enforced disappearance, and shall after conviction after trial on indictment by the High

Court, be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding twenty years, and also be liable to pay a fine not exceeding one million rupees and shall further be liable to pay compensation not less than five hundred thousand rupees to a victim.

(2)

Any person who -

(a)

wrongfully confines, abducts, kidnaps or in any other form deprives any other person of such person’s liberty; and

(b)

(i)

refuses to acknowledge such wrongful confinement, abduction, kidnapping, or deprivation of liberty; or

International Convention for the Protection of

All Persons from Enforced Disappearance

Act, No. 5 of 2018

(ii)

conceals the fate of such other person; or

(iii)

fails or refuses to disclose or is unable without valid excuse to disclose the subsequent or present whereabouts of such other person, shall be guilty of an offence under this Act, and shall after conviction after trial on indictment by the High Court, be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding twenty years, and also be liable to pay a fine not exceeding one million rupees and shall further be liable to pay compensation not less than five hundred thousand rupees to a victim.

(3)

A superior who –

(a)

knows, or consciously disregards information which clearly indicated, that subordinates under the effective authority and control of such superior were committing or about to commit an offence under subsection (1);

(b)

exercises effective responsibility for and control over activities which were concerned with the offence of enforced disappearance; and

(c)

fails to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his power to prevent or repress the commission of an offence under sub section (1) or to submit the matter to a law enforcement authority for investigation and prosecution, shall be guilty of the offence of enforced disappearance, and shall after conviction after trial on indictment by the High

International Convention for the Protection of

All Persons from Enforced Disappearance

Act, No. 5 of 2018

(4)

In this section “wrongful confinement”, “kidnapping”

and “abduction” have the same meaning as in sections 331,

350, 351, 352 and 353 of the Penal Code.

Read on from s 4