Controversial Buddhist monk jailed for insulting Islam

A hardline Sri Lankan monk who is a close ally of ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has been sentenced to nine months in prison for insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred.

Galagodaatte Gnanasara was convicted on Thursday for the remarks, which date back to 2016.

Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marks the second time that Gnanasara, who has repeatedly been accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.

The sentence, handed down by the Colombo Magistrate's Court, comes after a presidential pardon he received in 2019 for a six-year sentence related to intimidation and contempt of court.

Gnanasara was arrested in December for remarks he made during a 2016 media conference, where he made several derogatory remarks against Islam.

On Thursday, the court said that all citizens, regardless of religion, are entitled to the freedom of belief under the Constitution.

He was also given a fine of 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees ($5; £4). Failure to pay the fine would result in an additional month of imprisonment, the court's ruling added.

Gnanasara has filed an appeal against the sentence. The court rejected a request from his lawyers to free him on bail until a final judgment was made on the appeal.

He was a trusted ally of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign and flee abroad following mass protests over the island nation's economic crisis in 2022.

During Rajapaksa's presidency, Gnanasara, who also leads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was appointed head of a presidential task force on legal reforms aimed at protecting religious harmony.

After Rajapaksa's ouster, Gnanasara was jailed last year for a similar charge related to hate speech against the country's Muslim minority but was granted bail while appealing his four-year sentence.

In 2018, he was sentenced to six years for contempt of court and intimidating the wife of a political cartoonist who is widely believed to have been disappeared. However, he only served nine months of that sentence because he received a pardon by Maithripala Sirisena who was the country's president at the time.