{"id":96588,"date":"2019-12-19T00:22:49","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T06:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96588"},"modified":"2019-12-18T16:44:13","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T23:44:13","slug":"swiss-embassy-and-exercising-the-rule-of-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/19\/swiss-embassy-and-exercising-the-rule-of-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss embassy and exercising the rule of law"},"content":{"rendered":"

S. Akurugoda<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

On 16th<\/sup> December 2019, soon after a face-to-face meeting of Swiss Ambassador Hanspeter Mock with\nSri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapakse, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) has issued a\nstatement to the media criticizing lack of due process in the case against\ntheir local employee who is detained (after a court ruling) for falsely\nclaiming that she had been abducted and threatened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statement, as a whole, is trying to tell the world,\nindirectly, that the Sri Lanka authorities (including judiciary) for not\nfollowing due procedures, not complying with national and international judicial\nstandards and not protecting the safety and rights of the accused. https:\/\/www.fdfa.admin.ch\/eda\/en\/fdfa\/fdfa\/aktuell\/news.html\/content\/eda\/en\/meta\/news\/2019\/12\/16\/77584?pk_campaign=communique&pk_kwd=@swissmfa&fbclid=IwAR2aoF7BJJqHnw0L5JMabFrV-SUrAlYdVO6iFMr-yq9zk5DN8uMypkPm5i4<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, addressing the heads of media\ninstitutions, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said that the local staffer\nattached to the Swiss Embassy was not abducted and, it has now been revealed\nthat the incident was solely a calculated target on him. He alleged that the embassy employee hadn\u2019t co-operated with the police during\nthe investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nentire country is now aware how the Swiss Embassy tried to take the Sri Lankan\nwoman concerned to Switzerland, in an air ambulance, while denying the Sri\nLankan police access to her. Since the employee is a Sri Lankan citizen, she\ndoes not come under the diplomatic immunity. \nThe Sri Lankan authorities had to get a court order to access the women\nconcerned since the Embassy failed to provide the identity of the their\nso-called victim, although the embassy gave wide publicity, throughout the\nworld, regarding the alleged abduction plot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nper the latest local media reports, CID has uncovered the involvement of\nseveral other employees attached to the Swiss embassy based on mobile phone\nrecords of the detained local staffer.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The said Swiss statement stated that FDFA\nand the Swiss Embassy in Colombo will continue to meet their responsibilities\nas an employer and do everything in their power to assist the member of staff\nconcerned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since several staff members of the embassy\nis   involved in this plot, as per the\nlatest reveals, it is the\nresponsibility of the Swiss embassy, at least now, to meet their obligations\nand to co-operate with the Sri Lankan authorities to exercise the rule of law\nin order to find out the actual culprits of the plot and real motive of the\nfabricators to tarnish the image of the elected President of the host country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

S. Akurugoda<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S. Akurugoda On 16th December 2019, soon after a face-to-face meeting of Swiss Ambassador Hanspeter Mock with Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapakse, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) has issued a statement to the media criticizing lack of due process in the case against their local employee who is detained (after a court ruling) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s-akurugoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96588","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=96588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}