Case on protester who invaded the pitch during a cricket match: Court fined Manimaran

Manimaran Sadasaramoorthy, 42, of Mitcham in Surrey, travelled to Wales on June 20 this year to take part in a legal protest at the city’s Swalec Stadium against the presence of the Sri Lankan cricket team on British soil.

A protester who invaded the pitch during a cricket match between Sri Lanka and India in Cardiff claimed yesterday that his dad had been murdered by the Sri Lankan government. Manimaran Sadasaramoorthy, 42, of Mitcham in Surrey, travelled to Wales on June 20 this year to take part in a legal protest at the city’s Swalec Stadium against the presence of the Sri Lankan cricket team on British soil. Pleading guilty to a section five public order offence at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court, the unemployed dad of two told Judge Martin Brown that he ran on the pitch during the match carrying a banner “for the 40,000 people killed by the Sri Lankan government” and a Tamil Eelam flag of a proposed independent state that Tamils in Sri Lanka want to create in the north and east of the country. Sadasaramoorthy was accused alongside six other protesters, who all pleaded not guilty to the offence and were bailed with the condition that they cannot attend any national or international cricket matches until their trial in September. The judge gave him seven days to pay Rs.70,000/- victim surcharge “in it’s entirety”. Six other defendants who denied public order offences.