Doctors thought he might have orthopaedic complications, a source familiar with the matter said. “But the X-ray showed a cell phone and two hands-free kits.”
Realising that he had been caught, the inmate chose to “extract” the phone and hands-free sets himself rather than be forced into surgery.
While the isolated situation might be rather amusing, if somewhat akward for all concerned, it is part of a much wider problem of contraband smuggling within Sri Lanka’s penal system.
“Most prisoners, particularly when they are taken to courts for cases, return with mobile phones given by outside parties. We have minimized the problem and are on the alert and catch them when they come in,” said commissioner of prisons, P.W. Kodippili.
The inamte explained that he had been in his cell talking to his relatives when prison officers had launched a random raid on his cell. Having nowhere to hide the illict phone he took the only course of action available to him and place it within himself.
According to reports he was undone by the haste with which he had been forced to act, forgetting to silence his phone or indeed finish his conversation. Minutes later the relative he had been talking to called him back and the authorities were alerted to the phone’s presence by the ring tone eminating from “beneath him”.
The prisoner Siripala then alledges that having been sprung, correctional officers severely beat him which was what caused his unscheduled trip to the hospital.
What a pain in the arse for him.
