Accused bursts into tears, expresses grievance

One of the accused who stands indicted with causing the death of 14 security force personnel, destroying ten aircrafts and causing damage to six aircraft during an attack on the Anuradhapura Air Force Base on September 22, 2007 burst into tears and expressed concern about the Attorney General’s Department’s delay for one and half years in amending a word in the indictment against him, and that he had been on remand for more than seven years.

The first accused Thabo Ruban requested the court to expedite the trial and furnish or acquit him. When the case was taken up for trial before Anuradhapura High Court Judge Kema Swarnadipathi, he requested court for permission to make a statement. He informed court that he had been on remand for about seven years and that he is suffering from Asthma. He said the trial in the High Court had been deferred for more than one and a half years due to the failure on the part of the Attorney General’s Department to amend the indictment. He stated that he had absolute confidence in the judiciary and that he was hopeful that the court would mete out justice to him. Justice Swarnadipathi told him that the court was not in a position to intervene in the affairs of the Attorney General’s Department. However, the Judge said she could only consider sympathetically his grievance and advise him to send a relative to the Attorney General’s Department and make inquiries in this regard. She said the trial would resume after receiving the amended indictment. The judge also ordered a former leader of the LTTE P. Aravindan of Sankanei, Jaffna to appear in court on May 13, 2015 and postponed the case for that date.