Chamila addressing the press outside the Colombo prison
A Sri Lankan woman who got married to a prisoner serving a 30-year-term for financial fraud held her wedding celebrations on the street outside the main Magazine Prison in Colombo.
After taking the marriage vows before a registrar of marriages, the prisoner was taken back to his cell by the guards while the 46-year-old woman, Sweet Shelyn Chamila Buck, held on to her wedding document and vowed to continue fighting for her husband’s protection in the jail.
There were no wedding photographs. The only picture of the event was taken by the marriage registrar from his cellphone which the guards asked him to delete. Their relatives were barred from entering the prison during the registration of the marriage and her husband was dressed only in his prison clothing.
Addressing a motley crowd of two lawyers, a Catholic priest and a few relatives she said her husband, Senerath Bandula Liyanarachchi, aged 41, had been subjected to a great deal of harassment. “He is an eye witness to a prison riot where several inmates were killed and therefore he is being victimized by the authorities. He is being transferred from prison to prison and he is even made to stand in a bus while being taken to Colombo from Anuradhapura prison (a distance of about 200 km).”
The prison riots broke out during a search for illegal arms on November 9, 2012 that left 27 people dead and 40 injured. A team comprising of 300 commandos from Special Task Force assisted the prison guards to carry out a search which yielded drugs and mobile phones from the cells.
The prisoners rioted staging a siege, broke into the prison armouries and started firing at police from the roof top. After several failed attempts the STF took control of the situation but some witnesses and rights groups allege that several prisoners were summarily executed.
Chamila is an active member of an association fighting for the welfare of prisoners. In an earlier media interview she said she met the man 20 years ago but lost touch with him and later came to know from his mother that Senerath was serving a jail term. She made several visits to the prison to see him and a romance blossomed. She decided to marry him when a guard told her that only the relatives were allowed to visit him.
“I fought for three years to marry him. I met many officials but everybody was delaying the matter and finally I decided to meet the prison reforms minister who allowed me to marry him,” said Chamila dwarfed by a huge mural across a prison wall depicting prisoners engaged in performing menial tasks in the jail. The bride was dressed in a ceremonial sari and wore wedding jewellery.
The priest M. Shakthivel said the occasion indicated the true spirit of Christmas, embodying love.
“I won’t fight if he is a sex offender or a rapist. He was involved in a financial fraud and sent behind bars. Now he has realized what he had done and repents. He needs a second chance,” Chamila told the media few months ago.
The woman has been criticized on social media. Some people alleged that there is an NGO supporting her and there are also reports that two of her brothers with dual citizenship in the US are behind her move which some describe as some kind of plan to draw attention to rights violations inside the prison. The woman is also portrayed as someone out to make money from the NGOs. According to some posts she also has German citizenship.
