SRI LANKA SENTENCES TWO TO HANG FOR TSUNAMI MURDER

December 14, 2006: two Sri Lankans accused of grabbing a gold chain from a woman caught in the 2004 tsunami before letting her be swept to her death have been sentenced to death for her murder. The men were caught on camera in December 2004 as they pushed the woman back into floodwaters during the island's worst natural disaster in a crime that shocked the nation. "Both accused have been given the death sentence by hanging," said W.S.T. De Silva, High Court registrar in the southern port town of Galle. The sentence was pronounced on December 13.
The video, widely shown in Sri Lanka after the disaster, shows Mapalagamage Ruwan and Ajith Kumara standing on the roof of the bus station in Galle, where hundreds drowned, as flood waters swept through.
They appear to pull 23-year-old Dineti Deshika from the water, grab a golden necklace and then let her fall back into the raging torrent. Her body was found when the waters receded.
The theft was one of the highest-profile crimes reported during the tsunami, which killed some 35,000 people in Sri Lanka and almost 230,000 around the Indian Ocean. (Sources: Reuters, 14/12/2006)