13 October 2020 03:14 am
Former President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday said that he had been given false information regarding Intelligence Coordination Meetings (ICM) by the former Defence Secretaries and now the reason for his decision to appoint five Defence Secretaries is very clear.
Testifying for the second day, before the PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks, former President Sirisena said he guessed the officials had ICM every week.
However, during the testimony, a representative from the Attorney General's (AG) department proved to the former President that the political and the security heads had not conducted the ICM weekly as was supposed to be held.
"When considering the above facts, it was clear why I removed and appointed five Defence Secretaries during my tenure. They even lied to me. ICM was an important meeting for National Security," he said.
According to the document showed to the former President at the Commission, the weekly ICM was only held in May 2016 and August 2017. (Yoshitha Perera)