Sri Lanka's jailed ex-military chief Sarath Fonseka has rejected a government offer to consider clemency, said his wife on Friday. Anoma Fonseka said she met her husband at Colombo's Welikada prison where the former four-star general began his 30-month sentence on Thursday night .
The ex-General was held in virtual solitary confinement and had to sleep on the floor in a mosquito-infested cell, but was not prepared to go on bended knees to the government, she told reporters.
“He told me he has not committed any crime to appeal to the President for clemency,” Ms. Anoma said after a brief meeting with her husband inside the prison. A report quoted Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as saying Mr. Fonseka should make a plea to the President. “The President was ready for a re-evaluation of the recommendation of the court martial on the basis of a plea by Fonseka,” said the Island newspaper.
