Victims and witnesses: No protection, but persecution
The Sunday Times investigation exposes some startling cases
On a humid night in February, Sudesh Nandimal left his sister’s house in Moratuwa to buy credit for his mobile phone. Four men milled about the gate. A vehicle was stopped a short distance away, its parking lights on.
They were still there when he returned and crowded around him. “You’re Nandimal, aren’t you?” one asked. He confirmed that he was. “Machang,” the man said, ominously, “don’t pull up the prison case. Let it go. If you pursue it, some of us will have to go in, you will have to go in or you will have to go six feet underground.”
Nandimal was a fan of Che Guevara, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary. He had been a union leader in the Department of Railways and an activist with the New Left Front. In 2007, he was arrested with several others under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and flung into jail. The Government spread word that they were “Sinhala terrorists.”
Slapped with what he says was a trumped-up charge of possessing illegal weapons, Nandimal was prosecuted under the Firearms Ordinance. He spent several years in remand until a settlement with the Attorney General’s (AG) Department saw him released in 2013.
But the previous year, Nandimal had watched firsthand the horrific killings that took place within the Welikada prison after a riot broke out during a search for illicit weapons, drugs and mobile phones. Inmates were felled before his eyes allegedly by the Special Task Force and army in the presence of prison officers. Fifty-three prisoners were killed.
Once out, Nandimal spoke openly about the experience. He futilely gave evidence before committees appointed to “investigate” the hours-long riot. And he offered himself as a key witness in any legal case that might be filed.
His doggedness brought the men to his sister’s house--where Nandimal lived with his wife, 11-year-old son and 10-month-old daughter--that night. But he argued that he would not stop campaigning for voiceless inmates who died in 2012. The men turned hostile. “Fine, we will see,” they said, before striding off.
Nandimal went public again. The Moratuwa police recorded his complaint, made cursory inquiries and showed little interest in affording him protection. The Criminal Investigation Department claimed it had referred the case to the AG’s Department and heard nothing back. Today, Nandimal--a potential star witness--lives in fear.
Senior attorney-at-law K.S. Ratnavale has supported Nandimal in the past and frequently represents defendants and victims in PTA and human rights cases. A majority of them are Tamil. He is only too familiar with the dangers witnesses and victims face in the pursuit of justice. One reason is that structures such as the police Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) have not been dismantled.
“In the recent past, there have been threat and intimidation of witnesses in high profile cases and also in matters on ethnic basis, where Tamil people are involved,” Mr Ratnavale said. “When the offenders are from the armed forces or police, there are more tendencies towards intimidation and threat so witnesses come forward at very high risk. I get information every day about people being visited at home, especially in the North and East.”
The scourge of witness and victim threat, intimidation or harm is not new in Sri Lanka. It is shockingly widespread. And it happens regardless of the case or type of crime committed. For some, particularly in high profile judicial proceedings, bearing witness has become question of life-or-death. Even those appearing before commissions or committees have not been spared.
Mr. Ratnavale represented witnesses before the Udalagama Commission which was appointed in 2006 to inquire into cases of grave human rights violations including the killing of 17 workers of the French NGO Action Contre la Faim. The Commission set up a Victims and Witnesses Assistance and Protection Unit (VWAPU) headed by a senior police officer named Jayakumar Thangavelu.
The Sunday Times contacted retired Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police Thangavelu in Canada. He said that, while the Commissioners backed and supported him, “the State, through a member of the panel of counsel from the official bar assisting the Commission, hampered and caused serious obstacles to my functions”. he said.
The National Authority has an office in Battaramulla. A senior retired Sri Lanka Administrative Serivce officer, who is also an attorney-at-law, Pushpa Wellappili, has been appointed to get the structures in place.
But substantive measures such as creating safe houses and establishing the Victims of Crime and Witnesses Assistance and Protection Fund, could take time. “Once the preliminaries are done, the real working of the project will start in a year or oneand-half-years,” Mr Gamalath predicted, cautiously.
Civil society groups have expressed serious concerns about the law in its current form. They particularly question the rationale of delegating the task of protecting victims to policemen who engender so much mistrust in society--and rightfully so.