COLOMBO (TIP): A Sri Lankan doctor has been sentenced to death for raping and murdering a patient at a hospital near Colombo. Dr Indika Sudharsana Balage was found guilty of killing the young woman, a garment factory worker, at the hospital in the town of Negombo in 2007.

He was convicted of strangling the 23-year-old before throwing her body from a sixth-floor window.Hundreds of people are on death row in Sri Lanka. The country’s last execution was in 1976. Dr Balage’s victim, Chamila Dissanayake, was at the hospital following an operation. A janitor saw Dr Balage dragging a body on the hospital’s sixth floor and testified against him in court, reports say. Ms Dissanayake’s family said they were happy that justice had been done, reports BBC Sinhala’s Saroj Pathirana.