Sri Lanka restores death penalty for drug dealers

Sri Lanka is to start hanging drug criminals, ending almost 50 years of a moratorium on capital punishment, in a bid to replicate the “success” of the war on drugs in the Philippines.

Maithripala Sirisena, the Sri Lankan president, told the cabinet he was “ready to sign the death warrants” of repeat drug offenders, the country’s first potential executions since 1975.

Thousands of people have been killed in the drugs purge of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines president, since he came to power in 2016.