Sri Lanka probes death of disgraced top judge
The officer said forensic experts were due to visit the scene, which was cordoned off.
COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lankan police opened an investigation Monday into the sudden death of a top judge who became the first supreme court justice to face prosecution for sexually assaulting several women.
Justice Sarath de Abrew, who had resigned late last year, was found dead in front of his two-storey house in the Colombo suburb of Mount Lavinia, police said.
"The initial report was that he had fallen from the first floor of his house and was pronounced dead on admission to hospital," a local police official told AFP.
The officer said forensic experts were due to visit the scene, which was cordoned off.
De Abrew had been on bail since he was arrested in July last year for allegedly trying to force a 39-year-old woman to have sex with him and beating her up when she refused.
There had been several other allegations that he had also sexually abused minors, including one of his own relatives.
He was forced to resign after the influential Bar Association of Sri Lanka urged the chief justice not to allow him on the bench.
