BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of Sri Lanka’s highest-ranking Buddhist monks has been arrested and sent to remand prison over the alleged rape and sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Venerable Pallegama Hemarathana Thero holds one of the most revered positions in the Buddhist world – the chief prelate or custodian of eight sacred sites in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was arrested following a submission from the country’s child protection authority, which had previously criticised police for not arresting him despite being named as a suspect in the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pallegama Hemarathana has not publicly commented on the charges. He will appear in court on 12 May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The alleged victim’s mother was also arrested and remanded to custody after being charged with aiding and abetting the abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pallegama Hemarathana was receiving treatment at a private hospital in Colombo when he was arrested on Saturday. The magistrate determined that he should be transferred to the Colombo prison hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also issued an order to immigration authorities to ensure that Pallegama Hemarathana did not try to flee the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is unusual to see Buddhist monks – much less such a high-ranking figure – arrested in Sri Lanka, where they are both politically powerful and venerated by society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: One of Sri Lanka’s highest-ranking Buddhist monks has been arrested and sent to remand prison over the alleged rape and sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl. The Venerable Pallegama Hemarathana Thero holds one of the most revered positions in the Buddhist world – the chief prelate or custodian of eight sacred sites in Sri Lanka. He was arrested following a submission from the country’s child protection authority, which had previously criticised police for not arresting him despite being named as a suspect in the case. Pallegama Hemarathana has not publicly commented on the charges. He will appear in court… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57480,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57478\/revisions\/57480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}