A hardline Sri Lankan monk who is a close associate of ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapakse has been sentenced to nine months in prison for insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred.

Galagodaatte Gnanasara was convicted on Thursday for the remarks, which date back to 2016.

Buddhist monks are rarely sentenced in Sri Lanka, but this is the second time Ganasara, who has been repeatedly accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.

The sentence handed down by the Colombo Magistrate’s Court comes after a presidential pardon in 2019 for a six-year sentence for intimidation and contempt of court.

Ganasara was arrested in December for remarks he made during a 2016 media conference, where he made several derogatory comments against Islam.

On Thursday, the court said that all citizens, irrespective of religion, are entitled to freedom of belief under the Constitution.

He was also fined 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees ($5; £4). The court’s verdict further stated that failure to pay the fine would result in one month of imprisonment.

Ganasara has filed an appeal against the sentence. The court rejected a request by his lawyers to release him on bail pending a final decision on the appeal.

He was a trusted ally of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign and flee abroad in 2022 after widespread protests over the island nation’s economic crisis.

During Rajapakse’s presidency, Ganasara, who also leads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was appointed to head the Presidential Task Force on Legal Reforms to Protect Religious Harmony.

After Rajapakse’s oysterGnanasara was jailed last year on a similar charge of hate speech against the country’s Muslim minority, but was granted bail after appealing his four-year sentence.

In 2018, he was sentenced to six years in prison for contempt of court. Intimidation of a political cartoonist’s wife which are widely believed to have disappeared. However, he served only nine months of this sentence as he was pardoned by Maithripala Sirisena who was then the President of the country.