Rajapaksa claims witchhunt against his family
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared on Friday that “deliberate” attempts were being made to implicate former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the abduction and assault of Keith Noyahr, Associate Editor of the now defunct Nation newspaper.
In a three-hour long statement he made before an Assistant Superintendent and an Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Mr Rajapaksa alleged there was a “vicious campaign” against members of his family.
Ravi Samaraweera, the senior DIG in charge of the CID, and Director Shani Abeysekera, SSP, turned up at Rajapaksa’s official residence at Wijerama Mawatha on Friday morning. They introduced the ASP and the Inspector who were to question the former President and later left. Large crowds, including members of the Buddhist clergy, opposition parliamentarians and lawyers were present.
At the centre of the questioning were telephone calls Rajapaksa had received on May 22, 2008 and in the early hours of the next day after Mr. Noyahr was abducted. Two calls had come from Lalith Allahakoon, the then Editor of the Nation. Another call had come from Speaker Karu Jayasuriya.
CID detectives told Mr. Rajapaksa that according to Mr. Allahakoon, he (former President) had agreed to send the then senior DIG Anura Senanayake to inquire into the abduction. They had said that Speaker Jayasuriya had also spoken to him. Those telephone calls had lasted two to three minutes. The former President said he could not recall receiving those calls since it was now ten years since the incident took place.
Asked by the detectives whether he was aware that Army personnel, including a Major, had carried out Mr. Noyahr’s abduction, Mr. Rajapaksa had replied “I don’t believe this.” He had, thereafter, insisted on the inclusion in his statement of his claim that the CID and the FCID were carrying on a “campaign of political victimisation” against him and his family. He has also said in his statement that senior DIG Senanayake had warned him that plans were afoot to implicate Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the Noyahr abduction.
CID sources said yesterday that a further statement is to be recorded from former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He is currently in the United States and is due to return next month.