The daughter of slain journalist, Lasantha Wickrematunga, yesterday called out President Maithripala Sirisena for ordering the transfer of Inspector Nishantha Silva out of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), claiming that the President was degrading his office worse than any of his predecessors and demanded that the transfer order be reversed. Ahimsa Wickremetunga in letter to President Sirisena, flatly accuses the latter of ordering IGP Pujith Jayasundara to transfer out Inspector Nishantha Silva on the occasion of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s birthday. In her letter she describes Inspector Silva as a gentle, humble individual and makes note of the multiple high profile investigations such as the probes into the abduction of journalist Keith Noyahr, disappearance and killing of cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda, the floating armory and the abduction and murder of 11 youth in Trincomalee in 2008/9. He then accused President Sirisena of falsely branding Inspector Silva as an LTTE mole, pointing out that Inspector Silva had in fact been instrumental in the fight against the terrorist group referring to him as “one of the single biggest thorns in the side of the LTTE in the history of the CID”. She noted that Inspector Silva had been a junior officer who had was a part of the team that investigated and dismantled the LTTE Intelligence networks that supplied and facilitated the attack on the Katunayake Airport in 2000 and that Silva was also the lead investigator into the 2006 assassination attempts on both Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka. She then asserted that President Sirisena was left with two choices, to either rectify an ill-advised lapse in judgment by reversing the removal of Inspector Silva from the CID or alternatively, the President could wait until the Independent Police Commission or a court of law reviews and halts his order. “Make no mistake, Mr. President. If you try to stand in the way of justice for my father and victims of brutality, you will fail,” she warned.