Courtesy Hiru News

The Attorney General informed the Supreme Court today that his department would not appear on behalf of the former president Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in the petition against them for not preventing the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.

Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe are among the respondents named in the fundamental rights petitions filed in connection with the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.

The petitions were taken before a full bench of seven Supreme Court Judges today.

Additional Solicitor General Farzana Jameel informed the court that the Attorney General who appeared for former President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe on the previous occasion would not do so as both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe are currently not in office.

Meanwhile, Attorneys-at-law Pulasthi Rupasinghe and Suren Fernando who appeared for former president Sirisena and former Prime Minister Wickremesinghe respectively requested the court to grant them time to file objections for their clients.

Accordingly, the judges ordered them to do so before 6th of March and informed the petitioners to file any oppositions if any before the 27th of March.

Later, the court decided to take the petitions for hearing on 12, 13 and 14th of May

Meanwhile, suspended IGP Pujith Jayasundera and former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando were further remanded until the 3rd of February

The suspects were produced before Colombo Additional Magistrate Priyantha Liyanage today.