Weerasinghe Mohandiramge Nihal Wickramarathne vs. The Attorney General – CA/HCC/0398/2017-2024

In the case between Weerasinghe Mohandiramge Nihal Wickramarathne (Accused-Appellant) and the Attorney General, the court addressed the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence to sustain a conviction for murder and the adequacy of the trial judge’s evaluation of such evidence. It was held that the cumulative circumstantial evidence conclusively established the appellant’s guilt, with no reasonable possibility that a third party could have committed the offense. The principle reaffirmed requires that, for a conviction based solely on circumstantial evidence, the evidence must be of such a conclusive and consistent nature as to exclude any reasonable hypothesis other than the appellant’s guilt. This decision relied on established legal standards for the assessment of circumstantial evidence,