Former Justice Minister Thalatha Athukorale has urged the Government to end its witch-hunt against former CID Chief Shani Abeysekera, warning that the ruling party’s political vendettas were now threatening Sri Lanka’s GSP+ concessions and economic security.
In a statement issued today, SJB MP Athukorale warned that the EU Parliament in a Resolution adopted last week, had noted the ‘politically motivated detention” of SSP Abeysekera.
She said the Government’s “undemocratic and autocratic conduct” had put Sri Lanka’s import duty concessions to the EU market in grave peril. “If the countries that purchase most of our exports start to see Sri Lanka as a lawless and undemocratic country that arbitrarily punishes professional public servants for doing their job, we will face an economic catastrophe,” Athukorale warned.
The SJB MP revealed that evidence presented by the police against Abeysekera and his fellow detectives had been independently reviewed by multiple unbiased senior law officers at the Attorney General’s Department. “All these prosecutors found serious contradictions and inconsistencies in the allegations made against the former CID Director by the Colombo Crime Division. They have all issued independent reports to their supervising officers concluding that there is no basis to prosecute Mr. Abeysekara and recommending that he and his colleagues should be discharged,” the statement by Athukorale noted.
However, senior officials at the AGD had overruled these recommendations, she said.
Athukorale urged officials at the AG’s Department to “rise above politics”.
“As officers of the court, our first and foremost duty is to the rule of law, not to personal career ambitions. This is no longer just about your own reputations or the fundamental rights and liberty of Mr. Abeysekara and his colleagues. The international reputation of our entire system of justice, our country’s export economy and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports now rest squarely in your hands,” she pleaded in her statement.
Lasantha Wickrematunge’s daughter Ahimsa, reacted strongly to Athukorale’s revelations about the reports recommending Shani Abeysekera’s discharge.
The Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge was murdered in 2009 on his way to work. His murder was one of the key cases the CID was investigating when Shani Abeysekera served as director of the department. His daughter Ahimsa has staunchly opposed the persecution of the investigators who vigorously pursued her father’s killers.
“If prosecutors have independently concluded that Shani is innocent, his arbitrary detention must end at once,” Ahimsa tweeted yesterday.
“The Attorney General’s prosecutorial discretion is a shield to defend the innocent, not a sword to wield in service of petty presidential vendettas,” she said.
Abeysekera was arrested nearly a year ago in connection with a charge of fabricating evidence in the Mohamed Shyiam murder trial heard by a High Court Trial at Bar.
Shani Abeysekera’s investigations led to the conviction of former Colombo Crimes Division Director DIG Vas Gunewardane for the murder. The trial also exposed that Vas Gunewardane had been running a contract killing squad and that he had been paid Rs 10 million for Shiyam’s murder.
Abeysekera, widely known as one of Sri Lanka’s finest police detectives, contracted Covid-19 in prison and suffered a heart attack en route to a treatment centre. The High Court has refused to grant the former CID Director bail. His bail case is now before the Court of Appeal. (NewsWire)