Talduwe Ratugama Rallage Weris Singho better known as Talduwe Somarama (1915–1962) was a Sri Lankan Sinhalese Buddhist monk who shot and killed Solomon Bandaranaike, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in 1959. He later openly converted to Christianity, just weeks prior to being hanged in the Welikada gallows.
Contents |
Somarama was born on August 27, 1915, to Iso Hamy and Ratugama Rallage Dieris Appuhamy. He was robed when he was 14 on January 20, 1929, and received his schooling at Talduwa Ihala School. He allegedly received his higher ordination in Kandy on June 25, 1936.
Allegedly drafted in to the conspiracy by Mapitigama Buddharakkitha, the chief incumbent of the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara,[1] Somarama reluctantly consented to assassinate the Prime Minister, "for the greater good of his country, race and religion". Although Buddharakkitha attributed Bandaranaike's failure to aggressively pursue the Nationalist reforms as the motive to eliminate him, the real reason appeared to be the Prime Minister's refusal to award business deals, in particular a shipping contract, to a company floated by the Chief Priest, Mapitigama Buddharakkitha.[1]
The date was set to September 25, 1959, when Somarama was to visit the Prime Minister at his home and shoot him at point blank range.[2] His saffron robes gave him free access to 'Tintagel', the private residence of Bandaranaike, in Rosmead Place, Colombo. As the Premier commenced his routine meetings with the public, Somarama waited in patience for his turn. When the monk's presence was announced to him, Bandaranaike rose to greet him in the traditional Buddhist manner. The assassin then pulled out the revolver hidden in his robes and fired at the prostrate Prime Minister. Somarama was injured in firing between himself and the Prime Minister's bodyguards.
The wounded Premier was rushed to hospital and died the following day in spite of a six-hour surgery by the country's most skilled surgeons. In his message to the nation from his bed in the Merchant's Ward of the General Hospital in Colombo, Bandaranaike referred to his unknown assassin "as a foolish man dressed in the robes of a monk", but requested that the authorities "show compassion to this man and not try to wreak vengeance on him."
Somarama then faced trial, along with four other involved in the conspiracy. It was a hopeless case, and in spite of a resourceful defense the jury unanimously found Somarama guilty of the capital offense. Before sentencing him to death, the trial judge, Justice T.S. Fernando, QC, CBE, told Somarama he had a "streak of conscience as he did not attend court in his saffron robes." The chief conspirator, Mapitigama Buddharakkitha and H. P. Jayawardena, a businessman closely associated with him, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder. Bandaranaike had suspended capital punishment, but after his death the government had it restored. In an apparent blunder by the draftsman, the law re-establishing the death penalty failed to include conspiracy to murder. As a consequence, while Somarama would hang, the two chief conspirators escaped with life sentences.
Somarama was hanged on 7 July 1962. He gave up his robes a fortnight before his hanging and, two days before his execution, was baptized as a Christian by an Anglican priest.[3] Prison officials said that this was so that he could seek "the forgiveness that the Buddhist religion does not grant."[4] Journalists in Ceylon, however, suggested a different motive: to kill a fellow Buddhist was a sin, which he had committed by killing Bandaranaike, but by converting he would spare the gaolers and hangmen from committing the same sin.[5]