In a hard-hitting letter addressed to the President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), Anura Meddegoda, Ahimsa Wickrematunge has accused him of hypocrisy and selective outrage in defending Attorney General (AG) Parinda Ranasinghe while ignoring alleged misconduct in multiple state-sponsored murder investigations—including that of her father, Lasantha Wickrematunge.
Ahimsa, the daughter of the assassinated journalist, condemned Meddegoda’s outspoken defense of the AG’s office after the Sri Lankan government initiated a review into Ranasinghe’s decision to discharge key suspects in her father’s murder. She pointed out that the BASL had remained silent in previous cases where the AG dropped charges under questionable circumstances—except when the victim was Meddegoda’s own client.
In her letter dated February 14, 2025, Ahimsa called out what she sees as double standards in the BASL’s response to controversial prosecutorial decisions. “Your decision to protest the alleged undermining of the independence of the office of the Attorney General when it comes to a flagrant abuse of his power in my father’s case is rich in hypocrisy,” she wrote.
She drew a direct comparison to a 2022 police killing in which Meddegoda personally represented the victim’s family. In that case, Mahesh Indika Prabath was killed shortly after being taken into custody by the Special Task Force (STF). Despite a magistrate ruling it a murder, the AG declined to pursue charges. Meddegoda, on behalf of the deceased’s widow, wrote to the President of Sri Lanka, demanding executive intervention to overturn the AG’s decision.
The Government responded by calling on the AG to explain his ruling—just as it later did in Lasantha Wickrematunge’s case. “Why is it that when the Attorney General sabotaged a murder investigation into one of your clients, you called it ‘obstruction of justice,’ sought executive review, and the Bar Association remained silent when you obtained it?” Ahimsa questioned. “But when that same Attorney General sought to unravel one of the most critical aspects of my father’s murder investigation, and I sought executive support to save it, you and the Bar Association suddenly sprang into action in his defense?”
Meddegoda has yet to publicly respond to the allegations, though sources suggest the controversy has put his leadership of BASL under scrutiny.
Ahimsa’s letter goes beyond her father’s case, pointing to what she calls a disturbing trend where the Attorney General’s office prematurely shuts down investigations into state-linked killings. She cited the Mahara Prison massacre in 2020, where 11 inmates were killed. Despite a magistrate-led police investigation collecting extensive evidence of extrajudicial executions, the AG closed the case before the investigation was complete.
“In this case too, like my father’s, the Attorney General did not wait until the police completed their investigations. Nor did he consider all available investigative material,” she wrote. “Instead, he once again relied on cherry-picked extracts from a bygone era to decide to discharge all suspects.”
Ahimsa argues that these decisions form a clear pattern—one where the AG’s office repeatedly obstructs justice in cases linked to state authorities.
One of Ahimsa’s most serious allegations is that key evidence in her father’s murder was ignored when the AG decided to discharge suspects. She points to two officers—Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Nanayakkara and Inspector Sugathapala—who were accused of doctoring police records to hide Lasantha’s final notebook, which allegedly contained the license plate numbers of his attackers.
Among the evidence Ahimsa claims was disregarded were tampered police registers showing pages ripped out and replaced, photocopies of the missing pages secretly preserved by an officer who had been ordered to destroy them, confessions from officers involved made before the Mount Lavinia Magistrate, statements from fellow officers corroborating the confessions, and mobile phone records allegedly linking senior police to evidence destruction.
“Instead of advising the police to conduct further investigations, [the AG] acted as if my father never had a notebook, and as if these critical police records were never doctored,” she wrote.
Ahimsa’s letter is not just a criticism—it is a direct demand for Attorney General Ranasinghe’s removal from office. “That is why I called for his impeachment,” she declared. “This was not a mistake. No criminal lawyer could make such a mistake. The choice to ignore the evidence was a deliberate one.”
She urged the BASL to support her call, arguing that allowing Ranasinghe to remain in office would undermine Sri Lanka’s judicial credibility. “Sri Lanka needs an Attorney General capable of comprehending the decades-long legacy of subversion of justice he is inheriting, and capable of marshaling the resources and popular will of the country to clean up Sri Lanka and restore faith in the rule of law.”
As pressure mounts on GoSL to act on Ahimsa’s allegations , the fight for justice in Lasantha Wickrematunge’s case continues, nearly 16 years after his murder.