Udagama v. Attorney General – sllr 2000 volume 2 page 103

In UDAGAMA v. ATTORNEY GENERAL, the court addressed the appeal against the conviction and death sentence of the accused-appellant, focusing on the reliability and sufficiency of the prosecution’s evidence. It was determined that the conviction was unsafe due to belated and inconsistent witness statements, substantive omissions in testimony, and the erroneous evaluation of circumstantial evidence, including the failure to properly consider the accused-appellant’s dock statement. The decision reaffirmed the principle that a conviction cannot rest on evidence plagued by material infirmities and must be set aside if reasonable doubt arises from the prosecution’s case. Reliance was placed on established standards for the assessment of witness credibility and evidentiary integrity in criminal pr