A retired Sri Lankan soldier who was protesting outside the Swiss embassy has now claimed that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had falsified evidence about the navy abduction ring which killed 11 youths.
Ajith Prasanna, a retired soldier, lawyer and convenor of the self-proclaimed ‘War Heroes for Motherland’ organisation held a press conference on Friday in which he alleged that the CID had pressured former navy officers and a former LTTE cadre to give false statements about the abductions.
Prasanna presented former navy officers and the LTTE cadre in question to ‘corroborate’ his claims, Ada Derana reports.
The case in which six Tamil, three Muslim and two Sinhalese boys were abducted and disappeared by the navy’s special intelligence wing in 2008 has seen some of the countries highest ranking officials implicated.
The prospect of accountability for the heinous abductions and justice for the victims’ families were already doubtful, with high-ranking suspects enjoying promotions as well as impunity.
Former navy commander Admiral Wasanth Karannagoda was promoted to the highest rank in the navy by former president Maithripala Sirisena in the midst of the investigation, less than a month before the CID announced he was to be indicted.
Since the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as president, the top investigator in the case Nishantha de Silva has since fled Sri Lanka and his CID chief been demoted.
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