27 June 2020 12:00 am
By T. Farook Thajudeen
The Special High Court conducting inquiry into the abduction of 11 youths was informed by 14th accused Wasantha Karannagoda’s Counsel that Appeal Court Judges A. H. M. D. Nawas and Sahela Rajakaruna had issued a writ on the Special High Court staying the on going proceedings until the final hearing of the Appeal Court case.
However the Special Trial-at-bar informed the Counsel that the court had not received any communication from the Court of Appeal in this regard.
The Judges queried from the defence counsel whether the Appeal Court had stayed the inquiry only on the 14th suspect or on all the suspects in this case.
It was told that the normal procedure is to stop entire proceedings of the case.
Counsel for the 4th and 7th accused told court that his clients were staying very far from Colombo and they had to come to Colombo every weekend to appear before the CID. He pleaded court to relax the bail condition on the two accused.
The Court considering the counsel’s pleading relaxed the bail condition on the two accused Nalin Prasanna Wickramasinghe and Rajapaksa Pathirana.
They were ordered to appear before the CID once a month instead of once a week. The Court also issued summons on the 5th accused Anton Fernando to appear before Court on July 24.
Attorney General Dappula de Livera has filed indictments against 16 persons, including former Navy Chief Wasantha Karannagoda and Rear Admiral D K P Dassanayake and 14 others for the alleged abduction and murder of 11 youths in order to collect ransom from their relatives.
The eleven youths - many of them Tamils, were abducted from Dehiwala, Wattala and other areas in the metropolis in 2008 and 2009 and were later detained in the Navy Camp in Trincomalee.