N. Bandula Karunarathna J.

The accused-appellants had been indicted in the High Court of Kurunegala on the following counts that charged them with having committed robbery thereby committing an offence punishable under section 380 of the Penal Code read with section 32 of the same and section 44A of the Firearms Ordinance No. 30 of 1916 amended by Act No. 22 of 1996. In addition to the aforementioned, the third accused-appellant had been charged with having possessed a firearm (non-automatic gun) and explosives (bullet).

Evidence of three eye-witnesses (PW 1, PW 3 and PW 4), two police officers (PW 5 and PW 8), the interpreter of the court (PW 10) and the Government Analyst (PW 17) had been led by the prosecution at the trial and the three accused-appellants had made statements from the dock.

At the conclusion of the trial, on the 2^nd of May 2017, the judgment had been delivered by the learned Judge of the High Court convicting all three accused-appellants of all charges against them and sentencing them to life imprisonment. Moreover, the third accused- appellant had been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for five years each for the two additional counts of possessing a firearm and a bullet. All sentences had been ordered to run concurrently.

With regard to the said convictions and sentences, this appeal has been brought before this court by the accused-appellants.

Grounds of appeal raised by the first and the second accused-appellants are as follows:

1. Evidence of the police witnesses (PW 5 and PW 8) were contradictory with that of the lay witnesses (PW 1, PW 3 and PW 4) as to the number of suspects arrested at the scene of crime.

2. Nothing had been recovered from the possession of the accused-appellants although they were arrested at the scene.

3. The learned Judge of the High Court had failed to consider and evaluate the dock statements.

4. There had been no proper identification of the accused-appellants by the witnesses and their identification amounts to a dock identification.

5. Only PW8 had seen a pistol falling off the third accused-appellant while he was escaping and his evidence on this fact and the identity of the third accused-appellant is a concocted story to fix his culpability.

6. The third accused-appellant was never arrested at the crime scene and therefore, it had not been proved that the first and the second accused-appellants had a common intention with him.

Grounds of appeal raised by the third accused-appellant are as follows:

1. The accused-appellants had been wrongly convicted under section 44A of the Firearms (Amendment) Act since there had been no evidence to prove that he had used the firearm and that mere pointing of the firearm is not sufficient to secure a conviction under the said section.

2. The evidence in relation to the identity of the third accused-appellant and the identification parade had not been properly led and therefore, the identification of the third accused-appellant too amounts to a dock identification.

3. The learned Judge of the High Court had failed to apply guidelines set out in R v Turnbull to the identification of the third accused-appellant by PW 8.

4. The prosecution at the trial had failed to prove exclusive possession of the pistol by the third accused-appellant and that the pistol produced was the same one that was used in the offence.

5. The prosecution had failed to prove the value of the jewellery and money that had been robbed.

The facts of the case are as follows:

As per the prosecution, around 7.30 p.m. on the day of the incident, three people had come to the house of Piyadigamage Gunaseeli. They had robbed their jewellery. It is evident that one person had a pistol in his hand and that person had been identified as the third accused- appellant. At the time of the robbery, around 8 p.m. on information received by the police, Officer Premawardena along with Police Officer Seneviratne had gone to the scene and two people had been taken into custody while they were inside the house