ARJUNA Courtesy Ceylon Today

President Maithripala Sirisena told the Media yesterday (14), that he had summoned the IGP, Head of CID, the Attorney General and other senior officials earlier in the week and given them a dressing down about the way in which they were handling cases involving Armed Forces personnel.

I told them not to drag these cases,” he told a press conference held at President’s House in Colombo.

Ceylon Today learns that the meeting took place on 11 September where he had ordered them to charge these personnel in Courts or if there was no case, to exonerate them.

The way the CID is going about these cases is wrong. As a result, there is confusion in the Media reports which have an impact on the public both here and abroad and in turn allegations are levelled against the Government of carrying on a witch-hunt against war heroes,” he said.

There are a number of on-going CID investigations into alleged crimes that were committed during the last Government, he said.

These include the killing of Sunday Leader Founder Editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, the abduction and assault of Keith Noyahr, the latter an Editor attached to The Nation, the disappearance of Cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda and the alleged abduction and disappearance of 11 youths who were taken supposedly to extort ransom.

These are serious crimes and those responsible must be brought to book and punished. But no-one has been charged yet,” the President noted.
He also pointed to cases involving several senior Armed Forces officers who have been arrested, kept in remand for some time and then released on bail.

At the special Cabinet meeting 13 September I told the Ministers that the CID has arrested various people and some of them are in remand while some have been released on bail. For instance, in the case where these 11 youths were abducted and disappeared, the CID arrested a number of persons, all Security Forces personnel and released them on bail except for one. This brings me to the case of the Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Ravi Wijeguneratne.

The allegation against him is that he assisted one of the persons accused of the abductions to escape from the country. The CID has not issued a charge sheet against any one of them. Now the people who are accused in this case are on bail and at home and no charges have been filed against them. But the CID has obtained an order to arrest the Admiral”, he said.