A Sri Lankan man who stabbed to death two of his compatriots in Santa Maria Novella, Floence, in March 2010, and fled the scene was arrested same night, based on eye witness accounts and finger prints on the murder weapons.
Chaminda Atula Kumara Hetti Arachchige, 35, told police that he was enraged when two men, Nisantha Ranasooriya, 40, and Mudiyanselage Sudath Rohana Jayalath 36, called him a homosexual, according to ‘il Giornale’ website.
Some friends of the victims said they were Italian resident permit holders and both were married, having one child each. Kumara worked as a servant in a villa in Tavarnuzze on the outskirts of Florence.
During the hearing, Kumara’s lawyer Stefano Bertini, requested that the man be subjected to a medical examination confirming that the defendant had been constantly ridiculed by his own countrymen and the accused had vowed to take revenge from the people who ‘destroyed his soul’.
Kumara who was found to be suffering from mental issues after psychiatric evaluation, was jailed for 10 years for the double murder and what happened while he was in prison took an entirely different turn in Kumara’s rags to riches saga with an inheritance worth millions of euros.
Kumara had come to Italy illegally and while he was doing odd jobs he had befriended a millionaire jeweller who hired him as a domestic help. The elderly, wealthy man did not have anybody to look after him since his wife had left him. He asked Kumara to take care of him promising him that he would make Kumara the sole heir of all his wealth after his death.
The news of his new-found riches spread like wild fire among the Sri Lankans and there were rumours that Kumara was having a homosexual relationship with the millionaire Italian. Kumara told the Italian TV that people openly ridiculed him calling him gay.
He said many of his compatriots asked him to leave Italy and go back home without living in sin. Homosexuality is viewed as a social and religious taboo in Sri Lanka, he told the media.
In 2010 Renato who was ailing for sometime died and Kumara inherited his massive wealth and the luxurious villa.
After some time, Kumara said, he began to hear voices in his head and later those mysterious voices were heard inside the palatial mansion. Some voices spoke to him in Sinhala asking him to give up his sinful life and go back to Sri Lanka.
On April 4, 2010 the voices were continuously bothering him and he decided to go out. In the morning he went to the church and walked back to his villa and then in the evening he decided to eat out and went to an Indian restaurant.
Before leaving the house he took a knife and hid it under his jacket. He was standing outside the restaurant smoking when three inebriated Sinhala men confronted him. They started abusing him verbally and told him “You had a homosexual relationship with the Italian businessman and that is how you got that old man’s wealth. Go back to Sri Lanka.” Kumara was enraged and that was how the double murder took place.
When Kumara was jailed for 10 years he gave his power of attorney to his Italian lawyer Bertini, who defended him in the murder trial. Kumara asked him to manage his bank account with more than 2,000,000 euros until his release from the prison.
Nobody knows where his wealth is
Kumara requested the lawyer to send his wife and the child 2000 euros a month. Bertini had done as he was told and sent a total of 100,000 euros to his family but no one knows what happened to the rest of the wealth.
Now there is a lawsuit against the lawyer who has been charged with financial fraud. According to media reports, he had been living in luxury in the recent past in addition to buying a massive villa.
Kumara’s present lawyer, Paulo Florio, says that Bertini had transferred huge amount of money to his own bank account leaving the Sri Lankan a pauper.
An investigative reporter who had been pursuing Bertini to find out about the missing wealth confronted the lawyer in his villa. Bertini said he never stole Kumara’s money except charging 186,000 euros for administrative fees and another 100,000 euros for general expenses.
When asked why those charges were unbelievably high, he said he usually charged higher fees from his clients. When questioned about documentary evidence to back his claims he had replied that he only had a verbal agreement with Kumara.
When asked how he earned money to buy a luxury villa while he has defaulted paying 800,000 euros in back taxes, Bertini said that he had rented the mansion.
Bertini, who is slapped with a law suit for misusing Kumara’s money with a temporary ban on his practice, said “I am 62 years old and nobody will hire me now. I don’t have an income and I might even go to jail.”
Kumara has three more years to serve for his offence and the question everyone asking is how he will recover his million dollar wealth when he walks out of prison as a free man.
