By Vishvanath/Counterpoint
Colombo, March 5 -There are arguments for and against the recent arrest and detention of Major General (Retd) Suresh Sally, a former top military intelligence officer, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in connection with the Easter Sunday terror attacks (2019). Most of them are coloured by the political views and biases of the proponents thereof.
The police cannot go about arresting people, especially under the PTA, claiming that they are suspects. The burden is now on the CID to justify not only the arrest of Sallay but also the manner in which it was made. He was moving about openly, like all other former military officers, and there was no suspicion whatsoever that he would leave the country or go into hiding. Therefore, instead of arresting him on the road like a suspect on the run, the CID could have asked him to visit its headquarters to make a statement. That is the procedure the CID usually follows when it arrests suspects. But it made Sallay’s arrest a dramatic one, and hurriedly summoned a media briefing to announce it among other things, but the event left journalists and the public none the wiser, and the general consensus is that it proved counterproductive.
The CID had all the time in the world to gather enough evidence against Sallay, if any, and present it to court in a convincing manner, if it had cared to clear doubts and suspicions in public mind about its action against him under the PTA. The timing of Sallay’s arrest has helped bolster the argument being peddled in some quarters that the CID and the government have sought to make the public believe their claim that a breakthrough has been made in investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks, with the seventh anniversary of the 2019 carnage only a few weeks away. It will not be prudent for the investigators to rely solely on a claim made by a person named Hanseer Azad Maulana, a former associate of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan aka Pillayan, in an interview with Channel 4 television, implicating Sallay in the Easter Sunday attacks, and the argument that some intelligence operatives sprang into action in the immediate aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks to cover up their tracks. There are serious allegations against Maulana, who has sought political asylum in Switzerland. A committee, commissioned by the Sri Lankan government, with retired Supreme Court Justice S. I. Imam as its Chairman, to investigate allegations made in a September 2023 Channel 4 documentary on the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, has debunked Maulana’s claims.
The seeds of suspicion that the Easter Sunday attacks may have been aimed at creating conditions for a regime change in 2019 and a section of the intelligence community may have had a hand in them were first planted by a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) consisting of Yahapalana MPs and some Opposition members sympathetic to that administration. Parliamentary Series No. 183 Report of the PSC, appointed to look into and report to Parliament on the Easter Sunday attacks, was presented to Parliament by the then UNP/UNF MP J. M. Ananda Kumarasiri, who was also Deputy Speaker and Chair of the Committee, on 23 October 2019. The other members of the PSC were Rauff Hakeem Ravi Karunanayake Rajitha Senaratne, Sarath Fonseka, M. A. Sumanthiran, Nalinda Jayathissa, Ashu Marasinghe, and Jayampathy Wickramaratne.
The PSC report says, inter alia: “The PSC makes a very serious finding in terms of the status of the state intelligence apparatus, where intelligence information known to a few was not shared with relevant parties. The PSC also observes that further investigations will be needed to understand whether those with vested interests did not act on intelligence so as to create chaos and instil fear and uncertainty in the country in the lead-up to the Presidential Election to be held later in the year. Such a situation would then lead to the call for a change of regime to contain such acts of terrorism. Coincidently or not so coincidentally, the security situation and fear would be unleashed months away from the Presidential Election. The PSC also notes that this occurred in the context of changes in the leadership in the Sri Lankan Army and DMI in 2019. These are extremely serious observations that can impact the democratic governance, electoral processes and security of Sri Lanka and must require urgent attention.”
Curiously, Jayatissa, as an Opposition politician, told the BBC that going by the findings of the PSC probe, he suspected that India had been behind the terror attacks. Several others who are either responsible for Sallay’s arrest or have welcomed it, testifying before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, appointed to investigate the Easter Sunday terror attacks, insisted that there had been a foreign involvement in the carnage. Among those witnesses were Senior DIG (CID) and CID Director at the time of the attacks, Ravi Seneviratne and Shani Abeysekera, respectively and Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith.
There was absolutely no need for a terror attack as part of a strategy to engineer a regime change in 2019. The Yahapalana government was disintegrating and on its last legs, with the SLFP-led UPFA having pulled out of it and President Maithripala Sirisena having joined forces with the Rajapaksas. The SLPP was sure to win a presidential election or parliamentary polls to be held in that year, having won the 2018 local government elections impressively.
The fact that Gotabaya Rajapaksa capitalized on the widespread fear and sense of insecurity caused by the Easter Sunday attacks to announce his presidential candidature and secure the executive presidency after a few months cannot be considered irrefutable proof that some intelligence officials loyal to him were behind the 2019 terror attacks. Politicians usually exploit tragedies and crises to win elections. That is the name of the game in politics. The UNP exploited the Premawathi Manamperi tragedy (1971) to turn public opinion against the SLFP-led United Front government and win the 1977 general election. The JVP-led NPP made the most of the current economic crisis to win elections.
Most of all, at the time of the Easter Sunday attacks, Sallay was overseas, and it is unthinkable that he any other intelligence office could have planned terror attacks in support of the SLPP without being exposed during a UNP-led government that was all out to destroy the Rajapaksa family and its associates politically.
Taking people into custody on suspicion is one thing but preferring charges against them as well as producing credible evidence to prosecute them successfully is quite another. A legal battle is a different ball game. The challenge before the CID and the JVP-led NPP government is to prove beyond a trace of doubt in court their claim that Sallay was involved in, nay masterminded, the Easter Sunday attacks. That in fact is a huge political gamble, given the manner in which he was arrested and the much-advertised claims that government politicians and some religious leaders have made in support of his arrest.
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