{"id":98915,"date":"2020-02-11T16:38:08","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T23:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98915"},"modified":"2020-02-11T16:38:08","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T23:38:08","slug":"meddling-politicos-before-the-era-of-call-recordings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/11\/meddling-politicos-before-the-era-of-call-recordings\/","title":{"rendered":"Meddling politicos before the era of call recordings"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"true\">By Janaka Perera<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>In the wake of the hullabaloo over MP Ranjan Ramanayake\u2019s phone call recordings, a retired senior police officer recalls how a politician attempted with a phone call to obstruct the path of justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was at the height of the JVP\u2019s second insurgency (1987-90) when a number of so-called bhikkhus were involved with the insurgents.\u00a0 Former DIG Terry Amarasekera &#8211; then Senior SP \u2013 in charge of the Mount Lavinia Division.\u00a0\u00a0He\u00a0had instructed the then Headquarter Inspector Mount Lavinia Nimal Mahagamage to go with a team to arrest one of these robed rebels. The latter was arrested in Matara and locked up after being brought to Colombo by the HQI and party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apparently\nthe monk had some connections with the ruling party despite being a fiery\nanti-government activist hailing from a province which was a hotbed of JVP\nactivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Late in\nthe night after the arrest, Tyronne Fernando, then Deputy Minister of Foreign\nAffairs, rang SSP Amarasekera had ordered the suspect be released immediately.&nbsp;\nWhen the SSP refused the Minister wanted the suspect to be bailed\nout.&nbsp;When that request too was refused Fernando had tried to have\nAmarasekera transferred to Jaffna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When\nthe latter conveyed this to the then Inspector-General of Police Cyril Herath, a\nlegendary police chief, he prevented the transfer to Jaffna and instead got SSP\nAmarasekera transferred to Police Headquarters, Colombo.&nbsp; When the SSP\nasked IGP Herath the reason for the sudden transfer the IGP, according to\nAmarasekera, had replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><\/strong>Gamini\nLokuge and Ranil Wickremesinghe wanted you transferred. You can work here as\nDirector Special Investigations Unit at Headquarters. You may come in the\nmorning and go in the evening.<strong>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Later,\nTerry Amarasekera was promoted DIG and posted to the Uva Province. He kept a\nrecord having served in Uva for five years and three months before retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cyril\nHerath though he served as IGP only for three years he performed an exemplary\nservice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Janaka Perera In the wake of the hullabaloo over MP Ranjan Ramanayake\u2019s phone call recordings, a retired senior police officer recalls how a politician attempted with a phone call to obstruct the path of justice.\u00a0 It was at the height of the JVP\u2019s second insurgency (1987-90) when a number of so-called bhikkhus were involved [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-janaka-perera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98915","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=98915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}