Hirunika's staff members remanded

23 December 2015 07:29 am

Five of Colombo District UNP Parliamentarian Hirunika Premanchandra’s staff members and another civilian were remanded till January 4 by Magistrate Priyantha Liyanage in order to produce the six of them for an identification parade allegedly for abducting a person of a Dematagoda drapery store on December 21.

Fort Magistrate Liyanage, who took the bench at the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court yesterday, remanded the suspects on considering the submissions of ASP Chandrathilaka.

The ASP told the Magistrate that on December 21Dematagoda Police had received a complaint that the employee of Lucky Star textiles at Dematagoda was abducted by some unidentified persons in the defender 62-1859.

He said while Dematagoda Police conducted investigations, the CCD took over it from the Dematagoda Police on the instructions of the IGP.

Consequently during their investigations they identified the Defender that belonged to Hirunika Premachandra.

The ASP said when they contacted Ms. Premachandra, she had told the CCD that she was unaware of such an incident.

However, later she had surrendered the Defender and the suspects to the CCD. She had said that she was attending a function to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of CMC at that particular time.

The ASP said they had recorded the statements of four eye witnesses and requested the Magistrate to remand the suspects as they had to hold an identification parade and consequently file charges against suspects for being members of an unlawful assembly to abducting , assaulting and for unlawful confinement of the victim, Amila Priyankara Amarasinghe, against his will.

Counsel Amila Indika appearing for the suspects told the Magistrate that the victim had abducted the wife of one of the suspects in the case and the suspect had asked the other suspects to settle the matter by getting his wife back to him. Thus the five staff members of Mrs. Premachandra had gone to the drapery store to settle the matter and they had abducted the victim.

Counsel Indika said he would object for holding the identification parade as the suspects were already uncovered to the public.

He emphasised that a rival TV Channel of Ms. Premachandra had repeatedly telecasted the video footage from the CCTV cameras to the public and had released posted it on Facebook page of the TV channel.

The Counsel said there was no privacy about the suspects and the Police cannot hold an identification parade according to the Criminal Procedure Code. (T. Farook Thajudeen and Shehan Chamika Silva)
 
Video by Courts Prasanna