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FR case against chief investigator withdrawn – AG
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When the ‘White Flag’ case was taken up yesterday before the High Court of Colombo, the three-member Trial-at-Bar Bench granted a request by the Defence Counsel to present as evidence, judgments delivered by the Supreme Court and the High Court in respect of charges against the Police Inspector handling investigations in the ‘White Flag’ case.
The Counsel for the Prosecution, Deputy Solicitor General Buwaneka Aluwihare, objected to it.
The Court granted the Defence permission to submit the files containing judgments in the above mentioned cases against CID Inspector Anura De Silva, the Chief Investigating Officer of the ‘White Flag’ Case. The cases are 553/2002 before the Supreme Court and 3518/2006 before the High Court.
The Court ordered the Registrars of the Supreme Court and the High Court to be present at the next hearing, on June 8, with the files pertaining to the aforesaid cases.
The Court also ordered that Parliamentarian Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha and Foreign Ministry Secretary Karunatilake Amunugama be summoned as witnesses at the next hearing.
Prof. Wijesinha was asked to submit a letter sent to Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Kshenuka Seneviratne, by Philip Alston of the United Nations, on December 18, 2009, a copy of the reply to it by Seneviratne and a copy of the subsequent letter sent to the UN withdrawing Sri Lanka’s reply to Philip Anston’s letter.
The second witness Amunugama was asked to submit a copy of the so-called Darusman Report sent to him by the UN.
Defence Counsel Nalin Ladduwahetty told the Court when he requested the Court to summon the Registrar of the Supreme Court to give evidence, the Prosecution had raised objections.
He requested the Court to pay attention to the circumstantial evidence pertaining to the present case.
Counsel Ladduwahetty said that the Chief Investigating Officer of the ‘White Flag’ Case was a respondent in a Fundamental Rights Case filed in the Supreme Court and he had been found guilty, the Defence Counsel said.
Thereafter, he had been indicted in the High Court, Ladduwahetty said. While that case against him was being heard, the police investigations pertaining to the ‘White Flag’ case had commenced. An SSP had been in-charge of the investigations but after two months, Inspector Anura De Silva, who at that time was a Sub Inspector was tasked to handle the ‘White Flag’ investigation.
On July 28, 2010, the Fundamental Rights Violation case filed against the Inspector in the High Court had been withdrawn by the Attorney General.
The Defence Counsel told the Court that those facts would help Court to arrive at a decision that the evidence given by prosecution witness Anura De Silva was biased.
The Defence Counsel said in questioning the credibility of a witness, even evidence that was not relevant to the present case could be produced in Court.
Counsel for the Prosecution Buwaneka Aluwihare told the Court that a Supreme Court judgment against a person could not used as evidence in another case.
He further said that simply because the inspector (18th witness) had been entrusted with the ‘White Flag’ investigation one cannot argue that the evidence given by him in the present case was biased.
Defence Counsel told the Court that the Prosecution and the Defence in the Fundamental Rights Violation case, filed in the High Court, are parties involved in the ‘White Flag’ case as well.
The case will be taken up again on June 08.
‘White Flag’ Trial-at-Bar
‘Don’t train your guns on ordinary people," SF tells the military
Former Army Commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka, when leaving Court following the ‘White Flag’ Trial-at-Bar, told journalists that the government was attempting use the security forces to suppress popular protests against it.
The former CDS urged the security forces not to train the guns they had used against the terrorists on the ordinary citizens of this country.
The government had learnt a bitter lesson when its attempt to rob the funds in the Employees’ Trust Fund account was foiled, Gen Fonseka said.
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