Minister of Youth Empowerment and Socio Economic Development, General Secretary of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress Arumugam Thondaman yesterday received a 6-month jail sentence suspended for three years for contempt of Court.

The sentence was handed down by Nuwara Eliya District Judge Ms Amali Ranaweera.

Deputy Minister Muththu Sivalingam and former Provincial Council Member P. Radhakrishnan, co-defendants in the case, also received the identical sentence and fined Rs 1,000 each.

The plaintiff in the case was former Parliamentarian and General Secretary of the Lanka United Workers’Front (LUWF). His charge was that despite a Court order made in 2006 declaring that S. Sathasivam was the rightful owner of a trade union office, the three defendants had trespassed into his office violating the Court order.

Senior Attorney-at-Law Daya Perera appeared for Minister Thondaman and the two other defendants. Attorney-at-Law Sivan Jothi Yogaraja appeared for the LUWF.