Convicted drug dealer dies of COVID

Notorious drug dealer Mohamed Niyas Naufer alias Potta Naufer, sentenced to death for the killing of High Court Judge Sarath Ambepitiya succumbed to COVID-19 on Saturday.

Prisons Spokesperson Chandana Ekanayake said Naufer was receiving treatment at the Welikada Prisons Hospital. He was also suffering from a kidney ailment.

Naufer and several others were sentenced to death in connection with the murder of former High Court Judge Sarath Ambepitiya in 2004. He was serving the death sentence at the high security Boosa Prison.

Ekanayake said the COVID-19 vaccination programme at prisons, which was launched earlier this month, has so far covered about 75 percent of the total inmates. “We have given the vaccine to about 15,500 inmates and those at the Boosa prison have also received the first dose,” he said.