Facebook affair gone awry

By Lakmal Sooriyagoda

A criminal case filed by Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) against a Facebook user alleging that a lady teacher had been blackmailed into sex by him after befriending her on Facebook and thereafter threatening to post her nude photos on it, was yesterday fixed for trail by a Colombo Court.

When the case came up before Colombo Fort Magistrate, the suspect S. Weeraratne said he was not pleading guilty to the charges. Accordingly, Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne fixed the matter for trial and witnesses were ordered to be appeared in Court on 3 August.

In this case, a lady teacher in a complaint to the CCD said she was blackmailed into sex by the suspect who befriended her on Facebook, by threatening to post her nude photos on it.

The complainant had told the CCD that she had built up a friendship with the suspect via Facebook on 15 September last year and in time their friendship had turned into a love affair and they contacted each other regularly on the mobile phone.

The woman said she had met the suspect at a hotel in Bambalapitiya on 17 September 2011 and on that occasion he had coaxed her to be photographed in the nude. She said she allowed him to take her photos on the promise he would marry her.

The woman said she had given the man Rs. 7,000 on one occasion and on another Rs. 4,000 and alleged that she was being continuously blackmailed by the man thereafter.

The CCD detectives who are conducting investigations into the incident managed to arrest the suspect Weeratne and produced in Court alleging that the suspect could be charged with coercing the complainant into sex by threatening to post her nude photos on Facebook.  The suspect is currently out on bail.

Defence Counsel Kinsley Hettiarachchi appeared for the suspect.