IDENTIFYING MASTERMIND OF THE EASTER ATTACKS MUST BE LEFT TO THE AG : ZUHAIR
FIt is for the Attorney General to decide who should be prosecuted, who should become witnesses, who should be discharged for lack of evidence and who should, in accordance with the regulations, be committed for rehabilitation
ormer MP. M. M. Zuhair, PC, said changing the identity of the alleged mastermind of the Easter attacks from Zahran Hashim to Naufermaulavi and then to any one else is a matter that must be left to the Attorney General of the country, in the interest of justice, equity and fair-play.
Issuing a statement, he said the government had announced time and again that the process of justice will be left to the Attorney General and then to Courts in certain cases and for rehabilitation in other cases.
“Politicians irrespective of the high offices they hold must take care not to get themselves embroiled into the freshly mandated watch list of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR).
It is for the Attorney General to decide who should be prosecuted, who should become witnesses, who should be discharged for lack of evidence and who should, in accordance with the regulations, be committed for rehabilitation.
We wish to emphasize that the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has a professional and ethical responsibility to be vocal in ensuring that the due process of justice is adhered to in relation to the parties who may represent the legal interests of the alleged perpetrators or the victims. This is specially so, because the UNHCHR has drawn attention to the alleged erosion of the ‘independence of the judiciary’ in Sri Lanka.
No doubt the Attorney General by now may be possessed of all the materials. He must be allowed to decide who may be the likely mastermind of the 21/4 attacks,based on the evidentiary material before him. It may be Zahran Hashim or Naufer Maulavi or Pulasthini Rajendran alias Sarah or the ISIS allegedly under US handlers or possibly any of the world’s intelligence agencies, some of which are notorious for toppling non supportive governments. May be the Police Department has not fully investigated some of these aspects.
The bottom line is that the country must know the truth. That is vital to prevent a recurrence of the carnage that those innocent Christians and the unfortunate tourists had experienced.
Perpetrators of crime and those who knowingly aided, abetted, conspired or neglected must be punished. That is very clear. But caution, care and judicious consideration is required to avoid incarcerating or punishing those innocent of any criminal act, intention or knowledge.
Muslims of Sri Lanka have and will cooperate in all genuine efforts to end the recurrence of all forms of violence in the country. But any attempt to punish Islam or the Muslim community as a whole or its civil society or political leadership for collateral purposes will violate the Constitution as well as international treaties. Misguided moves may bring disrepute to the country and create new radicals. It must be noted that the UNHRC has identified majoritarian and exclusionary rhetoric as carrying “the seeds of future violence and conflict”. We should avoid lengthening the UNHCHR watch list of Sri Lankan human rights violators,” he said.