LASANTHA KILLING: ARMYS TOP SPY

ACCUSED AT IDENTITY PARADE

(Lasantha Wickrematunge )
And Then They Came For Him.
by Vimukthi Yapa.-04/08/2016
But who is they? One household employee of Wickrematunge had harboured a
suspicion that they were sent by former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a
suspicion that he had openly voiced. That suspicion did not win the employee a lawsuit
or even the ignobility of a summary arrest for defamation. Instead, he was stopped on
the street, hooded, gagged, tied up and abducted in one of the white vans synonymous
with the former regime.

If you ever speak of the secretarys involvement in Lasanthas murder, I will end your
life, the suspect allegedly said to his captive some seven years ago, as he was about to
be blindfolded and returned to the place from where he was abducted. At the time, the
victim, fearing for his life, hoped and prayed that they would never meet again. He
could not have imagined the scene that would transpire last Wednesday, July 27, when
fate would favour him, and he would be the one to physically lay a hand to the man he
was to single out as his captor.
Last Wednesday morning, two vehicles made their way to the Mount Lavinia
Magistrates Court, both carrying hooded passengers under armed guard. One of the
vehicles is a regular to the court the Black Maria transporting prisoners between
Welikada Remand Prison and their hearings escorted by uniformed police. The other
was an unmarked van travelling to the courthouse from the New Secretariat building
in Fort, the headquarters of the CID.
On this day, the Black Maria carried Warrant Officer II Prema Ananda Udalagama, the
armys most senior non-commissioned spy, arrested ten days ago in a CID operation
aimed at revealing the conspirators involved in murdering founder editor of The
Sunday Leader Lasantha Wickrematunge.

his description exactly matched that provided by the abduction victim.

The van carried CID detectives and a precious witness whose identity and whereabouts
remain one of the most closely guarded secrets in the police. The witness had claimed
that he was abducted and threatened against cooperating in the investigation into
Wickrematunges murder, specifically threatened with death if he spoke of any
involvement by former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Among the reasons
the CID arrested Udalagama: his description exactly matched that provided by the
abduction victim.
Udalagama was to be produced before the victim in an identification parade, where the
victim would have to pick him out of a line-up of nine individuals. The scene that
transpired, however, bore little resemblance to identification parades seen in cinematic
films, where the witness identifies the suspect in mere seconds. This parade ran for
nearly twenty nerve-wracking minutes from start to finish.
At the outset, the magistrate was sensitive to allegations by counsel appearing for the
accused, Udalagama, that the parade may have been rigged by the appearance of
Udalagamas likeness on various websites. In order to make the parade as balanced as
possible, the magistrate permitted Udalagama to personally hand-select the eight
individuals who would join him at the parade out of those present in court.
Udalagama, a veteran in the ways of espionage, had taken his own precautions. He had
shaved off the moustache that he sported at the time of his arrest, and trimmed his
hair. Availed the opportunity to choose the others in the parade, the intelligence officer
picked out eight people who looked very similar to him, including two who matched
his outfit of a short-sleeved blue shirt and dark trousers. The latter appeared so similar
to the spy that several were suspicious that they had been planted in the courthouse by
Udalagamas colleagues in military intelligence.
Be that as it may, Udalagama was mixed among the eight others he had selected and

presented before the witness by the magistrate. Initially, the witness paused, presented
with nine similar looking individuals, too similar in appearance for his captor to be
instantly singled out. The other participants in the parade stood motionless, for they
had nothing to fear. If the witness had picked out the wrong person, they would not be
arrested, but released, for there were no grounds to suspect any of them. It was only
the accused, Warrant Officer Premananda Udalagama who had anything to fear, and
fear he did, as the witness inspected the parade, walking up and down, studying the
individuals before him for nearly twenty minutes under the watchful eye of the
magistrate.
Suddenly, the witness froze. His eyes shifted furtively between the two individuals
before him in blue, short-sleeved shirts and dark trousers, both dark in complexion,
short haired and sans the moustache the witness had alleged was sported by his captor
in 2009. One of the individuals had arrived that morning in the Black Maria, believed
by the CID to be his captor. The other had arrived at the courthouse by other means.
Few present would have been able to tell them apart in the second instance.
Eventually, the witness shook visibly as his gaze fixated on Udalagama. He turned
towards the magistrate, then back towards the accused. With a visible tremor
accompanying the courage of his convictions, the witness raised his arm and placed it
squarely on the shoulder of the accused. It was him, he said. He was the one.
Udalagama stared coldly at his accuser, leaving few with any doubt that he would have
liked nothing more than to fulfil the promise made by a kidnapper to his captive nearly
seven years ago. The CID detectives present were clearly determined to ensure that
neither the accused nor anyone in his formidable team of military intelligence
operatives and paramilitary agents, was accorded any opportunity to do harm to the
brave witness. Upon the conclusion of the parade and the magistrates order to remand
Udalagama until the case is next heard on August 4, detectives spirited the witness
away, changing vehicles and observing strict communication protocols and

surveillance detection routines, dropping off their witness at a secure location before
returning to CID headquarters.
While many have been interrogated and one arrested in the course of the investigation,
there is a common thread binding all of the suspects together. They are all employees
of the State. That common thread echoes the words Wickrematunge himself wrote in
what The New York Times called his letter from the grave, his self-penned obituary.
Murder has become the primary tool whereby the State seeks to control the organs of
liberty, Wickrematunge wrote. Indeed, the trajectory of the CID investigation leaves
little doubt that several sectors of government are suspect of involvement in a wideranging conspiracy to assassinate Wickrematunge and shield his killers.
In the course of its inquiry, the CID has grilled a bewildering number of senior police
officers, including a hitherto unheard of coterie of retired Deputy Inspectors General
and Inspectors General of Police.
Former Senior DIG Prasanna Nannayakara was interrogated last year over the
disappearance of evidence the notebook in which Wickrematunge wrote down the
motorbike license plate numbers of his assailants and the alleged planting of
evidence, as the CID gathered more and more evidence that he was complicit if not
instrumental in both. The Mount Lavinia police who investigated the murder came
under his jurisdiction. Former IGP Jayantha Wickremaratne was grilled for his
suspected role in these same events.
Former DIG Chandra Wakista, then responsible for the TID, was questioned at length
over several irregularities and inconsistencies in the TIDs handling of the
investigation into Wickrematunges killing after the case was suddenly transferred to
the TID in 2010.
Just this week, former Senior DIG Keerthi Gajanayake and former IGP Mahinda

Balasooriya were raked over the coals over several matters including the circumstances
under which the case was suddenly transferred away from the CID after less than three
months, shortly after the CID had achieved a major breakthrough by identifying the
involvement of Lance Corporal Kanagedera Piyawansa and thus the hand of military
intelligence operatives in Wickrematunges assassination.
A week prior, a former Major General and former Director of Military Intelligence was
secreted to CID Headquarters from Killinochchi to provide more information on the
role played in the conspiracy by military intelligence operatives and defence officials at
the highest level.
If the CID turns out to be correct in its apparent suspicions, the assassination of
Wickrematunge would be the first such conspiracy in the countrys history to involve
coordination by two successive IGPs, at least three DIGs, and military flag officers and
non-commissioned officers and intelligence operatives at the highest level.
The fact remains, however, that for all its diligence and tenacity in the course of this
inquiry, the CID appears to be almost consciously oblivious of two of the most critical
components of an investigation into a plot with such unquestionable complexity and
intricacy: the question of means, and the question of motive.
Specifically, how many people had the power and influence to orchestrate such a
scheme, with sway to hold the strings of the most senior brass of the countrys military
and law enforcement apparatus. Of that handful, how many had the motive and
impunity to assassinate the Editor of The Sunday Leader, a close friend of a sitting
wartime President, under a state of emergency?
More specifically, Wickrematunge was brazenly followed for hours across a capital city
littered with police and military checkpoints, then brutally attacked in broad daylight
on a busy street in a high security zone, within a stones throw of one of the countrys

most heavily fortified Air Force bases. Who indeed, could have both masterminded
such a plot, and engineered its cover up? Wickrematunge himself clearly foretold this
puzzle, and taking his signature cryptic dialect beyond the grave, left us some clues in
his letter from the grave.
His first clue was his apparent exoneration of his long-time friend, former President
Mahinda Rajapaksa.
I feel sorry for you, he wrote, addressing the former President. As anguished as I
know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers.
The second was alleging in no uncertain terms that while the former President would
not have had a hand in the killing, he would however know without doubt who
masterminded it, and that he would have reason to fear that person. We both know
who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours
too, depends on it.
Wickrematunge also went so far as to address his alleged murderer personally. I want
my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields
while condemning thousands of innocents to death, he declared. What am I among
so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that
remains to be written is when.
This newspaper and others of the fourth estate have in the past attempted to pose
answers to the question of who had the means and motive to murder Wickrematunge
and the other journalists and parliamentarians slain between 2005 and 2014, strike
fear in the heart of the President and orchestrate such a definitive and wide-ranging
cover up. On each occasion we have paid a high price in blood and treasure, not least of
which was the supreme sacrifice of Wickrematunge himself on January 8, 2009. It is
high time that the CID and the government as a whole confront these difficult
questions head-on, putting the machinery of the State in service of justice and the

preservation of democracy. Power of such magnitude cannot be dispelled overnight by

a rainbow revolution or good governance. It will take a concerted effort and
political will to dislodge the vestiges of dictatorship entrenched across the security
apparatus of the country. They should be under no illusions of whose lives will be at
stake if these forces are afforded a chance to return and prevail.
Sunday Leader
Posted by Thavam