punishment on 106 convicted Army deserters have handed them over to Welikada Prisons Headquarters Tuesday (2) afternoon for imprisonment, a Press Release issued by the Army Headquarters declared.

One more batch of 199 convicted Army deserters are also scheduled to be handed for imprisonment on Wednesday (3), upon completion of their legal proceedings, according to Army Directorate of Legal Services.

Those deserters have been arrested by Military Police and respective local Police stations in the most recent past, consequent upon their failure to honour general amnesty periods, granted to them earlier by the Army, beginning last May.

However, a total of 4870 Army deserters thus made use of the granted grace period and subsequently surrendered themselves to the Army between May 02-31, 2008. Similarly, some 2661 more deserters have responded positively to the amnesty until 13th June 2008.

Those convicts, depending on the duration of their absence are accordingly sentenced to imprisonment between three months to one year, in accordance with respective rulings determined, based on the periods of desertion. At present, several hundreds of such deserters are scheduled to be tried by Courts Martial in the next few weeks, Army Directorate of Legal Services said.

Army.lk