The Supreme Court today fixed dates for the hearing of the petition filed seeking to ensure the safety of famed drug trafficker Salindu Malshitha Gunaratne, alias ‘Kudu Salindu’. 

Accordingly, the petition is due to be heard on 21 June as per a court order issued this morning (06 April). 

The order was issued by a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya when the petition was taken up in court this morning. 

A fundamental rights petition was filed by Kudu Salindu’s mother, through a lawyer, claiming that her son’s life was in grave danger. 

Kudu Salindu is currently in the custody of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), after he was arrested in Madagascar in March this year. 

Thus, the petitioner sought an order against the respondents seeking to ensure her son’s safety. 

An order preventing the CID from taking the detainee to outside locations for investigative purposes, and requesting that the detainee’s hands and feet be shackled in the event he is taken to any outside locations was also sought by the petitioner. 

A team of officers from the CID left for Madagascar on 11 March to repatriate Sri Lankan drug kingpin Nadun Chinthaka alias “Harak Kata” and his infamous accomplice Kudu Salindu, who were arrested while on a visit to the island off the southeastern coast of Africa. 

The CID officers later returned to Sri Lanka with the notorious drug dealers on 15 March, and obtained an order under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to detain the duo for 90 days.