The current impasse in Parliament should not give vent to overlook the importance of thoroughly investigating the assassination threats against the lives of President Maithripala Sirisena and former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, said former judicial officer of the European Court of Law and Law Prof. Dinesh K. Gunasekara yesterday.
The assassination threats against President Sirisena and former Defence Secretary Rajapaksa calls for serious investigation on a national intelligence footing considering the clauses of the 19th Amendment and the conduct of the then Prime Minister Wickremesinghe towards the current Parliament, he said.
“Whatever the implications, it appears that some parties are on a guilt trip including some top notches in the political landscape and the police,” he said adding, “Unearthing what lies beneath this Presidential assassination plot could reveal a number of sinister plans that are lurking behind the national security of the country, both internal and external as such plots have often been revealed by such investigations.”
“The former Prime Minister had not taken this Presidential assassination plot seriously presumably because if the President was assassinated perchance, the former would be the President until the expiration of the President’s tenure with no objections as per provisions of the Constitution,” he said.
“But in the foregoing system, a Prime Minister thus appointed as the President at the death of the incumbent President, the new President has to go for a poll as soon as possible.”
“There are contradictions that call for serious reflections here,” he said.
“Besides, there have been compelling instances as regards this plot where the then Prime Minister had presumably attempted to dodge a full-scale and impartial inquiry,” Prof. Gunasekara said. He said former Prime Minister Wickremesinghe had not only avoided giving serious attention to this plot, he had also addressed the Inspector General of police who was under heavy flak by the masses after it was revealed that the assassination plot involved one of the Deputy Inspector Generals of Police as a prime suspect, as ‘my IGP’.
The President had raised concerns about this ‘my IGP’ on account that he had called for the sound clips of the conversations regarding this assassination plot as doctored even before they had reached his hands for examination. He also called to inquire into the manner in which the IGP in question had conducted investigations on the plot.
“What the IGP said about the investigations at the time must not be overlooked. He said that the then Prime Minister and others, namely the then Law and Order Minister were pulling his leg,” he said.
Asked how he could imply that the then Prime Minister did not conduct a proper investigations into the plot because he had called a probe report about it from the IGP, Prof Gunasekara said, “Wickremesinghe did not bother to launch any thorough investigation about it considering that the case under probe was none other than a plot to assassinate the President of this country, and former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was slated to become a future President of the country provided that he chose to contest any future Presidential election,” he said.
Wickremesinghe would not even give much ear to calls of the lawmakers in the House to arrest the DIG under suspicion and to suspend the IGP for an impartial inquiry on the matter, he said.
“They, however, made a simple transfer on the DIG to the police IT department,” the Professor said.