Sirisena warns police chiefs not to take action against military

by Sivakami
Sep 14, 2018

Sri Lanka's president, Maithiripala Sirisena today warned this week warned police chiefs not to take action against the military "in a manner that would cause embarassment to them", Ceylon Today reports. 

Sirisena made the order on Tuesday, which comes after the chief of defence staff, Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne is wanted over his involvement in helping the main suspect in the abduction and murder case of 11 Tamil youths evade arrest. 

Earlier this month Sirisena ordered that security services should not submit any information to the courts about the armed forces, in an attempt to block the courts from investigating military crimes. 

On August 16 Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) told Colombo Fort chief magistrate, Lanka Jayaratne it had evidence that Wijegunaratne provided the former navy commander, Lieutenant Commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi alias 'Navy Sampath' with Rs. 500,000 in order for him to skip bail and escape arrest.

“There is evidence against Admiral Wijegunaratne’s role in allowing the accused to evade arrest,” the CID was quoted by AFP as saying to the magistrate, who responded by immediately instructing the Bank of Ceylon to release records of the the navy's accounts from March to May 2017. 

Lieutenant Commander Hettiarachchi was arrested this month over his involvement in the abduction of eleven Tamil youth from 2008 to 2009, who were held in navy bases at Trincomalee and Colombo before being murdered.

Wijegunaratne was in 2016 filmed assaulting a journalist covering a story on Hambantota port. Despite this Sirisena extended his service and promoted him to chief of defence staff.

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