{"id":85578,"date":"2025-02-16T01:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T05:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=85578"},"modified":"2025-02-17T12:57:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T16:57:59","slug":"85578","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=85578","title":{"rendered":"Lasantha Wickrematunge\u2019s killers are probably laughing up their sleeves as public attention remains focused on the Driver abduction case. This may be exactly what the \u2018Deep State\u2019 forces wanted all along."},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Kishali Pinto-Jayawardene<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Disappearing\u2019 notebooks, an assassinated editor, a lowly police officer who protested against the destroying of evidence and was threatened by his superiors to conform \u2018to orders\u2019 and such like, belong more inside the pages of a high octane spy thriller than in real life.<\/p>\n

A blueprint on how to violate the law<\/strong><\/p>\n

But these surreal aspects of the 2009 assassination of Sri Lankan editor Lasantha Wickrematunga exemplifies the kind of case that has typically formed the nucleus of Sri Lanka\u2019s impunity \u2018problem\u2019 as is sometimes quaintly put. In each case, dramatic features, not only of the crime itself, but also the necessary cover-up, are uncannily similar.<\/p>\n

The perpetrators performed faithfully in line with the blueprint furnished to them on \u2018how to kill and how to escape\u2019 which was, it must be said, crude in the extreme. And lest we forget, behind each of these crimes were ordinary human lives destroyed and families torn apart.<\/p>\n

And to pre-empt inevitably cynical scoffing, these were not \u2018collateral damage\u2019 of war, (there are no \u2018perfect\u2019 wars as we are told), but deliberate barbarities meant to enforce chilling \u2018total political control\u2019 in relation to gross corruption or the subjugation of minorities alike.<\/p>\n

In one particular year alone, (ie 2006) taking as an example, three \u2018emblematic cases\u2019 featured all these ominous signs, apart from the killings of lesser known unfortunates. These three cases are the assassination of minority ethnicity students who were about to enter university (the \u2018Trinco 5 case\u2019), the brutal extra-judicial killings of aid workers in Mutur and the \u2018disappearance\u2019 of a Vice Chancellor in the heart of Colombo\u2019s high security zone complex (Professor S Raveendranath of the Eastern University).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Accountability of the State<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the time, when Professor Raveendranath\u2019s son-in-law came to ask me as to what legal avenues for justice may be available, he remarked matter-of-factly that he had been performing surgery on injured soldiers at the National Hospital when informed of this disappearance. This casual aside has remained in my memory. Probably he himself was not conscious of the deep irony implicit thereto as he asked for justice for his (Tamil) father-in-law while saving the vision of (Sinhalese) soldiers.<\/p>\n

This \u2018emblematic\u2019 disappearance (allegedly as we must say) at the hands of the para-military operating with state sanction while the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) \u2018remained in the dark\u2019 has now been listed among the \u2018priority cases\u2019 to be brought to a close by the National People\u2019s Power (NPP) Government. For the point is that, in all these instances of the blood of innocents being spilt on the country\u2019s soil, there has been little investigation and even lesser successful prosecutions.<\/p>\n

At its core has been the accountability of the state prosecutorial office, including the grievous problem of \u2018politicised prosecutors\u2019 with unnerving allegations of complicity in the \u2018cover-up\u2019 of crimes that has put the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to shame. And in that convoluted process of \u2018ensuring justice\u2019, the continuing uproar over the \u2018Lasantha Case\u2019 flags an early red light to both the Government and the Department of the Attorney General.<\/p>\n

Unfortunate tit-for-tat of words<\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact, the \u2018heat\u2019 over the Attorney General\u2019s order to discharge three suspects in the magistrate\u2019s court case relating to this assassination, more specifically in connection with allegations of abducting Mr Wickrematunga\u2019s driver who had accused military intelligence of orchestrating the murder, has only intensified during the past week. <\/p>\n

This has been further convoluted by the Attorney General \u2018withdrawing\u2019 the discharge order this week as his critics cheered and his defenders retreated in disarray.<\/p>\n

But this tit-for-tat war of words raging between those upholding the \u2018status quo\u2018 (ie; in this context, Sri Lanka\u2019s besieged state prosecutor) and the Department\u2019s vociferous adversaries on public platforms is hardly conducive to sober consideration of imperative reforms of the country\u2019s prosecutorial office. <\/p>\n

As emphasised in these column spaces last week, framing these reforms as an \u2018independent\u2019 Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) versus a \u2018dependent\u2019 Attorney General is largely unhelpful.<\/p>\n

That simplistic treatment does not address core issues as to how and in what way the \u2018independence\u2019 of this Office may be secured. Sri Lanka experimented with such an Office in the seventies which was discarded due to the political manner of its functioning. Then as now, the courts declined to examine acts of the DPP or to exercise the power of review in setting aside decisions of the DPP.<\/p>\n


\n How does one \u2018guarantee independence\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n

More specifically, the exercise of his power to discharge suspects under Section 77 (3) of the old Administration of Justice Law was declined to be interfered with (Gunasena v the Attorney General, 1975) on the basis that it was not a final order and may be reviewed by the Attorney General based on new evidence if so available. <\/p>\n

The NPP Government has hinted that it contemplates setting up the DPP as a separate Office to the Office of the Attorney General.<\/p>\n

Even so, that by itself does not necessarily guarantee \u2018independence.\u2019 Ensuring that result must be cushioned by much more protections lest the office that is established is no better and perhaps a lot worse than what is sought to be remedied.<\/p>\n

In so doing, there are two interests to be balanced. On the one hand, the \u2018independence\u2019 of the prosecutorial function must be safeguardedOn the other hand, that safeguard is not an \u2018open sesame\u2019 to engage in indefensible prosecutorial decisions which are moreover defended as being immune from public scrutiny, to add insult to injury. <\/p>\n

Let us look at what the International Monetary Fund (IMF), hardly a bastion of radicalism, says in its Governance Diagnostic Report on Sri Lanka (September 2023) as to why such an independent prosecution service may be needed (vide annexure 2 to the Report).<\/p>\n

Separating the advisory role and the prosecutorial function<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is pointed out that this is paramount due to the Attorney General being too closely linked to the executive. This in a context where the state prosecutor is forced to be in close contact with political actors, \u2018the functioning of his Department will always be open to charges of political bias, no matter the character or integrity of individual officers\u2019 the Report states with evident force. It recognises the conflict between the roles of political advisor and criminal prosecutor.<\/p>\n

The Report goes on to suggest the device of the DPP as a way of insulating the prosecutorial function from the political advisory role. Indeed, Sri Lankan prosecutors may take a leaf out of the book of the United Kingdom\u2019s Crown Prosecutorial Service (CPS) which, even though underfunded and under-resourced as it is, has more than an 80% prosecutorial success rate.<\/p>\n

The CPS is headed by a Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) which acts independently from the Attorney General, even though there is inter-relation between the two Offices. More importantly, the Office is governed by a Code for Crown Prosecutors and is publicly accountable for the decisions that it takes, whether in regard to issuing indictments or discharge orders.<\/p>\n

Looking at the public interest<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is good comparative thinking that may be taken into account in the Sri Lankan context. We are told that a committee of representatives of the Attorney General, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, including also a judicial officer will be appointed by the NPP Government to examine as to how the DPP may be established.<\/p>\n

It is hoped that the members of this committee will engage in rational examination of the relevant interests, including the public interest thereto. In the final reckoning, it is profoundly paradoxical that Wickrematunge\u2019s killers are probably laughing up their sleeves as public attention remains focused on the ancillary abduction case. This may perchance be exactly what \u2018Deep State\u2019 forces wanted all along.<\/p>\n

That will be the final insult to countless victims \u2018still waiting for justice\u2019 in Sri Lanka.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Courtesy:Sunday Times<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Kishali Pinto-Jayawardene \u2018Disappearing\u2019 notebooks, an assassinated editor, a lowly police officer who protested against the destroying of evidence and was threatened by his superiors to conform \u2018to orders\u2019 and such like, belong more inside the pages of a high octane spy thriller than in real life. A blueprint on how to violate the law …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Lasantha Wickrematunge\u2019s killers are probably laughing up their sleeves as public attention remains focused on the Driver abduction case. This may be exactly what the \u2018Deep State\u2019 forces wanted all along.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85578"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85581,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85578\/revisions\/85581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}