Indictments served on 13 accused in Civilians abduction case

The Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar today served indictments on 13 accused in connection with the abduction, torture, extortion and conspiracy to murder eleven people in 2008 and 2009.

One of the accused, former Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda was not present in court as he was not served with the notice to appear in court yesterday.

At the outset the Counsel for the accused requested court not to serve the indictments until the Presidential Commission appointed by the President to inquire into the incident had not completed its inquiry.

They said the commission report may contain very decisive contents that would effect the security of the Country therefore not to serve indictments on the accused until the report was released.

Deputy Solicitor General Sarath Jayamanna PC appearing with Janaka Bandara for the prosecution said the High Court was not bound to follow the direction of the commission and that the Attorney General had filed indictments in court before the Commission was appointed that the commission could not issue orders to the Judiciary.

Therefore, he requested the Trial-at- bar judges to serve the indictments to the accused.

The President of the Trial-at-bar Champa Janaaki Rajaratna directed that indictments be served and the 13 accused were each released on a cash bail of Rs.500,000 and Rs.2.5 million surety bail.

Their passports were impounded while their wives were ordered to stand surety for the accused.

A team of lawyers including Anil Silva PC, Anuja Premaratna PC and Niroshan Perera appeared for the accused. Counsel Achala Senaviratne watched the interest of the aggrieved relatives of the Victims.

The case was postponed for February7.

The Chief Justice had appointed a Trial-at-Bar Bench comprising High Court Judges Champa Janaki Rajaratne, Amal Ranaraja and Navaratne Marasinghe to hear this case.

Navy officers D.K.P. Dasanayake, Sampath Munasinghe, Sumith Ranasinghe, Dilanka Senaratne, Nalin Prasanna Wickremasuriya, Anton Fernando, Rajapakse Pathirannehelage Kitsiri, Aruna Thushara Mendis, Kathriarachchilage Gamini alias Ampara Gamini, Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi alias Navy Sampath, Upul Chaminda alias Annachchi, Nandapriya Hettihendi and Sampath Janaka Kumara alias Podi Kumara and former Navy Commander Wasantha Karranagoda were charges for committing punishable offences under Section 102, 113 A, 356, 338, 333, 198, 372, 32 and 296 of the Penal Code for conspiracy, abduction with intent to secretly and wrongfully confine a person, wrongful confinement for the purpose of confinement, conspiracy to extort, extortion, giving false information and conspiracy to commit murder of the victims S.A. Leon Stanly, Roshan Leon Stanly, John Reed, Thiyagaraja Jhegan, Rajiv Naganadan, Ramalingam Thilakeshwaran, Pradeep Vishvanadan, Mohammed Saajith, Mohammed Dilan, Kasthuri Arachchilage Anthony and Mohammed Anwar Mubarak. (T. Farook Thajudeen)