Sri Lankan executed in Kuwait; relatives refuse to accept body

• The expatriate worker had been found guilty of drug trafficking

By B. G. Chaturanga   
The relatives of the Sri Lankan who was executed in Kuwait after being convicted for drug trafficking have refused to accept his body for funeral rites, an official said.   

He was executed last Wednesday.   The expatriate worker Jude Ravindra Cooper (43) of Adhiranigama in Halmillewa had been found guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced to death.   

Police said he had settled down in a village called Priyankaragama 14 years ago with his parents and separated from his first wife and remarried. Later, he had shifted to Kalutara but his address there was not known to his relatives.   

Media Spokesman for the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment Gamini Senerath Yapa told the media that the body would be handed over to the convict’s mother as requested by him and that provisions were available for it.   

However, Senior Manager of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment in Anuradhapura H. M. Sunil, after meeting the relatives of the deceased has informed the Sri Lankan Ambassador in Kuwait K. Kandeepan that they were not willing to receive the body.