JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A prisoner sentenced to death in the high-profile 2015 murder of Pungudutivu schoolgirl Sivaloganathan Vithiya died by suicide inside the Jaffna Prison, prison authorities said Sunday.
The Department of Prisons said the inmate, Poobalasingham Jeyakumar, 46, was found hanging inside the prison on Saturday night. Authorities said an investigation into the death was underway.
Jeyakumar was among seven men sentenced to death by the Jaffna High Court in 2017 over the rape and murder of Vithiya, a case that shocked Sri Lanka and triggered widespread protests across the Northern Province.
Vithiya, a schoolgirl from the island of Pungudutivu off the Jaffna peninsula, was abducted on May 13, 2015, sexually assaulted, and killed in a crime that became a symbol of growing public anger over violence against women and the breakdown of law and order in postwar northern Sri Lanka.
The convictions and death sentences handed down by the Jaffna High Court were later upheld by Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal.
Sri Lanka has maintained a moratorium on executions for decades, meaning death row inmates remain imprisoned despite receiving capital punishment sentences.
