Former Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan has been summoned to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) today (12), in order to record a statement related to the allegations in the documentary aired by British television network Channel 4 on the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks.
Speaking at a press conference held yesterday (11), Police Media Spokesperson and Deputy Inspector General of Police Nihal Thalduwa said that the CID has launched a probe into the relevant incident as per a complaint lodged by an organisation with the Ministry of Public Security against the statement made by the said documentary’s main whistleblower Hanzeer Azad Maulana – who was a spokesperson for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s breakaway group Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal led by Pillayan - to Channel 4 on the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks. He said that accordingly, an investigation was launched by the CID into the controversial statements made by several individuals regarding the Easter Sunday attacks.
Channel 4’s new ‘Dispatches’ investigation titled ‘Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings’ is a nearly 50-minute-long video with allegations about the attacks. It was based on the testimonies of allegedly highly-placed whistleblowers who claimed that senior Governmental officials were complicit in this act. According to the documentary, Maulana, who has sought asylum overseas after facing fraud charges here, has witnessed a meeting in Puttalam in 2018, between the suicide bombers and a top Sri Lankan intelligence officer prior to the Easter Sunday attacks. Claiming that he had, on the directives of Pillayan, arranged the said meeting between the then Army Intelligence Chief Major General Suresh Sallay and the National Thowheed Jamaath members including its leader Zahran Hashim, Maulana claimed that the plot to create insecurity in the country to pave the way for former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to win the Presidential Election later in 2019 was hatched over two to three years.
Recalling the 2009 disappearance of editor and attorney Lasantha Wickrematunge who was a prominent critic of the then Government, the ‘Dispatches’ investigation video claimed that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration had formed a clandestine death squad called the ‘Tripoli Platoon’ with the support of Pillayan’s group to crack down on anti-government media persons. It had interviewed former senior CID officer Nishantha Silva who was investigating the murder of Wickrematunge. He claimed that he found phone record evidence putting ‘Tripoli Platoon’ members at the scene of Wickrematunge’s killing and that Gotabaya Rajapaksa had ‘direct monitoring’ of this death squad.