Sri Lanka, Sept. 15 -- The Polonnaruwa High Court has sentenced a police sergeant and two constables from the Polonnaruwa Divisional Anti-Corruption Unit to seven years of rigorous imprisonment for torturing and beating a hotel manager to death.

The officers were also each fined Rs. 15,000.

The incident took place on World Temperance Day in 2004 when a group of four police officers, including the former OIC of the unit, went to a hotel in the Kaduruwela area of Polonnaruwa to get a bottle of liquor.

When the hotel manager, Herman Quintus Perera, refused to provide it, citing the day's restrictions, the officers became angry.

They then forcibly abducted and brutally beat him.

According to the post-mortem examination, the manager had 2...