Former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka today giving evidence in the attempted assassination on him by a suicide bomber on September 2006 at the Army Headquarters in Colombo, recalled the harrowing ordeal which left him critically injured.

He said for about five minutes after the bomb blast he remained clutching to the vehicle door. He said after the blast he got out of the vehicle and remained near the wreckage of the car holding on to the door. Thereafter an army officer came and took him to the accident service in an ambulance.

Mr. Fonseka made this assertion giving evidence which was led by State Counsel Thusitha Mudalige before Colombo High Court Judge Kumudini Wickramasinghe.

Witness Fonseka also said that on the day of the incident he was in his office at the Army headquarters. Around 1.00 pm he left the headquarters with an army escort and saw a woman in a yellow and blue shalwar among the crowd near the entrance. When the car was about 2 meters closer to that woman a fire flared up from the side of that woman and Mr. Fonseka saw his driver falling on to the steering wheel of the car while the two guards on his sides fell down.

Mr. Fonseka said he came out from the wreckage of the car and stood by the car holding the door. After the lapse of about five minutes an army officer came there and took him to hospital.

He said he was conscious until the dressings were put on his wounds. Thereafter he became unconscious. Later he regained consciousness and realized that he was in the ICU of the National Hospital. (T. Farook Thajudeen)