A radical Sri Lankan monk, 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 comments dating back to 2016.
Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this is the second time Gnanasara, repeatedly accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.
The sentence, handed down by the Colombo Magistrate’s Court, follows a presidential pardon he obtained in 2019 for a six-year prison sentence linked to intimidation and contempt of court.
Gnanasara was arrested in December for comments he made during a 2016 press conference, during which he made several derogatory remarks against Islam.
On Thursday, the court said all citizens, regardless of religion, have the right to freedom of belief under the Constitution.
he was also fined 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees ($5; £4). Failure to pay the fine would result in an additional month of imprisonment, the court judgment added.
Gnanasara appealed this conviction.
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 2022 economic crisis.
During Rajapaksa’s presidency, Gnanasara, who also leads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was named head of a presidential task force on legal reforms aimed at protecting religious harmony.
After Rajapaksa’s ouster, Gnanasara was jailed last year on a similar charge linked to hate speech against the country’s Muslim minority, but was released on bail while he appealed his four-year sentence .
In 2018, he was sentenced to six years in prison for contempt of court and intimidation of the wife of a political cartoonist who allegedly disappeared. However, he only served nine months of this sentence because he obtained a pardon from Maithripala Sirisena, the country’s then president.
