Courtesy Adaderana

President’s Counsel Ali Sabry says that the manifesto of New Democratic Front (NDF) Presidential Candidate Sajith Premadasa contains ideas from the interim report complied with inputs from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).

Speaking at the 360° political program on TV Derana last night (04), Sabry said that there are grave and serious issues in the manifesto of Sajith Premadasa.

He points out that that the interim report of the Steering Committee on the Constitution submitted to the parliament was made by the Prime Minister and TNA Spokesperson MP M. A. Sumanthiran. 

These ideas and proposals are contained in the recently published manifesto of Premadasa, he added.

According to Sabry, the manifesto read, Sri Lanka shall be a union of provinces and states. Sri Lanka shall be a federal state within the framework of the united and undivided and indivisible country”.

President’s Counsel Ali Sabry says that there was no chance of defeating the LTTE without Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Responding to a query on defending a person who has corruption charges against him, Sabry says that anyone can accuse anyone and all the charges against Gotabaya Rajapaksa are false accusations made with political intentions. That is why we represent his without any doubt or hesitation, he added.

He said, We need a motherland to live and work. We need leaders who can protect the country. Among the few leaders, we have Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the best leader we have at this moment. Therefore, it is our duty to protect him.”

Speaking on the allegations that Gotabaya Rajapaksa won all his cases through the loopholes of the law, Sabry said that they have only won through the fairness of the law. 

He says the judges who had given the verdicts in these cases are unblemished great judges and that these same judges have rejected cases of Gotabaya at other instances. However, no one talks when a case is rejected, but when a case is won, it is criticized through websites registered abroad, he added.

Sabry says that accusing one person or one government for racial conflicts is unfair. Although it was wrong to not have punished the perpetrators, Mahinda Rajapaksa or Gotabaya Rajapaksa never fled from issues, he said. 

They took the responsibility of the incident which happened during their regime and did what had to be done. However, this government, instead of taking responsibility for the situation, blamed someone else and let the issue grow worse. They had nicely managed it and pushed the blame on the Rajapaksas to show that it was a creation of them. This is a lie. This is a common challenge for us as a nation. These happened under the Bandaranaike era, J. R. Jayawardena era, R. Premadasa era, Chandrika Bandaranaike era, Mahinda era and even now.”

Commenting on the Easter Sunday terror attacks, the President’s Counsel says that he agrees although there were some deviations from the mainstream within the Muslim community, it is unfair to blame the whole Muslim society for this incident. 

Blaming the whole Muslim community over the act Zahran Hashim is wrong. Because Hashim had been chased away from his mosque in Kattankudy. The trustees there had carried out Satyagrahas. Fifteen complaints had been lodged at the police. Arrest warrants had been issued. You cannot push this on Muslim people. 

I think the government is completely responsible for this incident. Nearly 97 intelligence reports had been submitted. It seemed as the government just waited for this to happen. 

It is fair to have suspicion against Muslims after the incident. But it is not fair to claim that the Muslim community is connected to this act because the Muslim community doesn’t have a reason to do so. LTTE terrorism had a goal. To gain an Eelam, separate land and a separate state. But Muslims do not have such a goal. 

The people who attacked had no issue with Sri Lanka. They just wanted to create mayhem over the issues with the West. Therefore there is no connection between the Muslim society and the Easter Sunday attacks.”