Sri lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday said he would initiate talks with Pakistan to send back five Pakistani nationals sentenced to death in the island nation for drug trafficking.
Sirisena’s remarks come a month after he had said Sri lanka would go ahead with implementing the death penalty on drug dealers, ending a near-half century moratorium on capital punishment.
“I will talk to the new Government in Pakistan to send them back to their country,” the President said in Jaffna on Wednesday. Drug trafficking is punishable by death in Sri lanka. The five Pakistanis are among 18 people on death row for drug offences. Police claimed the 18 convicts ran a drug business from prison.
President Sirisena had last month told his Cabinet that he was “ready to sign the death warrants” of repeat drug offenders.