{"id":154909,"date":"2026-02-26T15:56:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=154909"},"modified":"2026-02-26T15:56:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:56:50","slug":"former-mp-weerasekara-labels-arrest-of-suresh-sallay-a-government-deception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/02\/26\/former-mp-weerasekara-labels-arrest-of-suresh-sallay-a-government-deception\/","title":{"rendered":"Former MP Weerasekara labels arrest of Suresh Sallay a government deception"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Hiru News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Former Member of Parliament Sarath Weerasekara stated that the arrest of retired Major General Suresh Sallay, former head of the State Intelligence Service, is a calculated move to mislead the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking at a press conference in Colombo, he claimed the arrest serves as a deceptive measure intended to appease the Cardinal, the Catholic Church, and the victims of the Easter Sunday attacks while diverting public attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He further noted that even the Police Media Unit appeared to lack clarity regarding the specific grounds for the retired officer&#8217;s arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The former MP addressed allegations made by Azad Maulana, the former media secretary to Pillayan, in a Channel 4 documentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maulana claimed Sallay met with ringleader Zahran Hashim in 2018 to discuss creating instability to favor Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s presidential bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Weerasekara dismissed these as false statements from a channel he described as consistently anti-military, suggesting this narrative likely prompted the arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He highlighted that Sallay served at the Sri Lanka High Commission in Malaysia from December 2016 to December 2018 and attended the National Defence College in India throughout 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He argued that Sallay was not in the country during the periods the alleged meetings occurred and questioned how such a meeting could be possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, he cited Pillayan\u2019s assertions that Azad Maulana fled the country to seek political asylum and pointed to Maulana\u2019s links with a doctor who treated Zahran&#8217;s brother after a pre-attack accidental explosion as a reason for their current absence from the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Hiru News Former Member of Parliament Sarath Weerasekara stated that the arrest of retired Major General Suresh Sallay, former head of the State Intelligence Service, is a calculated move to mislead the public. Speaking at a press conference in Colombo, he claimed the arrest serves as a deceptive measure intended to appease the Cardinal, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jvp-anti-national-activities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154910,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154909\/revisions\/154910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}