No, this photo shows the acting medical officer in charge of the Sri Lankan hospital where the sex abuse allegedly occurred, not the suspect

This article is more than one year old.
Published on January 17, 2020 at 03:40
3 min read
By AFP Sri Lanka

A photo of a man has been published in an online article alongside a claim that he is a doctor who sexually abused minors at a hospital in Sri Lanka. The article has been shared repeatedly in multiple Facebook posts on pages with thousands of followers. The claim in the posts is false; the man pictured has been wrongly identified as the suspect in the case; he told AFP he is the hospital's acting medical officer; the real suspect in the case has been remanded in custody until January 21, 2020.

This article was shared on a public Facebook page with more than 12,000 followers on January 8, 2020.

It features a photo of a man, circled in white, identifying him as a doctor arrested over alleged sex abuse of minors at a hospital in the Sri Lankan district of Ampara.

The Tamil-language caption on the Facebook post translates to English as: “Shameful act of Ampara doctors...shocking information that comes out regarding abuse of schoolgirls”.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:

Screenshot of the Facebook post.

The report reads in part: “A doctor attached to the Senarathpura Rural Hospital in Ugana Divisional Secretariat Division of the Sinhala village of Ampara District has been arrested by the police and placed under arrest.

“Students from a nearby Sinhala school have gone to the hospital to receive a medical examination report for a sports competition.

“It is reported that the doctor who tested them have abused them."

The article was also shared here, here, here and here on Facebook alongside a similar claim.

The claim is false. The man photographed in the article is the acting medical officer in charge of Senarathpura Hospital, where the alleged sex abuse occured, not the suspect.

In a phone conversation with AFP on January 10, 2020, Dr. Niroshana Liyanage said the photo in the article shows him. He said he was “disheartened” by the way his photo had been used in news reports.

“It was very disappointing to see some local news websites had used my photograph, carelessly identifying me as the doctor from the Senarathpura hospital who abused four minors. I left the service of this hospital in 2017, but have been overseeing the administration as the Acting Medical-Officer-in-Charge. The doctor who was arrested joined this hospital about three months ago,” he said.

He said the photo in circulation appears to have been taken from this post on the hospital’s Facebook page of a staff meeting, published December 13, 2019.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading article (L) and the hospital’s Facebook post (R):

Screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading article (L) and the hospital’s Facebook post (R)

During the conversation with AFP, Liyanage said he has since filed a police report on January 10, 2020 against several local news websites for the unlawful use of his photo that has resulted in defamation.

Below is a photo of the police complaint receipt Liyanage has shared with AFP:

Photo of the Police complaint receipt shared by Dr. Liyanage with AFP.

According to this report by English-language Sri Lankan newspaper Colombo Gazette published Janury 7, 2020 a doctor was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing four minors at a hospital in Ampara.

This Sinhala-language report by the online news website Gossip Lanka News identifies the suspect as Milan Fernando, who was remanded in custody until January 21, 2020.

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