Lawyers seek to unseal complaint on Gota

By Easwaran Rutnam

Lawyers who filed a case against former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a US court have now filed an application to unseal the documents and make it public.

Two cases were filed in the US against Rajapaksa last week. One case was filed on behalf of an alleged Tamil torture survivor, while the other was filed over the murder of journalist Lasantha Wickremetunga.

A London-based public relations consultancy firm, which is handling the PR work of the case on behalf of the US law firm, said that the complaint was still sealed.

“We have filed an application to unseal but are awaiting court action,” Director of TPR Media in London Sophie Toumazis told The Sunday Morning on Thursday.

She said that the case was filed under case number 2:19-cv-02626 in the Central District of California.

TPR said that the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) and US law firm Hausfeld have filed the civil damages case in California against Rajapaksa, on behalf of Tamil torture survivor Roy Samathanam.

Samathanam made the complaint in the Central District of California against Rajapaksa, who is a dual US Sri Lankan citizen.
Human rights lawyer Scott Gilmore from the international law firm Hausfeld said that Samathanam was paving the way for other victims to coming forward.

“Roy’s case is representative of a systemic pattern of deliberate wilful torture against civilians. I am confident we will establish Roy’s claim,” he said.

However, Rajapaksa’s camp denied the allegations made against him.