The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has seized a car belonging to a non-governmental organization involved in the alleged abduction of the slain national rugby player Wasim Thajudeen, according to Police sources.
Wasim Thajudeen
This NGO is stated to have handed over this car to one more NGO run by Shiranthi Rajapaksa. At the time of Thajudeen’s death the mentioned car had been in the possession of the NGO run by her.
Meanwhile adding a new twist to the Thajudeen killing, Cabinet Spokesperson Dr. Rajitha Senaratne on Thursday mentioned that three officials attached to the Presidential Safety Division (PSD) were
allegedly involved in the murder of Thajudeen. The courts on Thursday granted permission to exhume Thajudeen’s physique. The exhumation will take location on August 10.
Meanwhile the son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and former UPFA Hambantota District MP Namal Rajapaksa has denied allegations that his family was involved in the murder of Thajudeen. He had told media that Thajudeen was a family members pal even though adding that some components were attempting to politicize Thajudeen’s death.
Thajudeen had died on May possibly 17, 2012 inside his automobile which had apparently crashed into a wall close to Shalika grounds in Narahenpita. The Police at the time mentioned that the vehicle had exploded instantly. Later the charred body of the rugby player was identified inside the automobile. The CID had recently informed courts that they had been in a position to ascertain through a fresh investigation that Thajudeen’s death was not accidental but murder.
Meanwhile issuing a statement the Asian Human Rights Commission mentioned “one of the principal aims of political alter in the nation, therefore, has to be the restoration of its criminal justice apparatus – to the point that the relevant operators in these institutions will dare to execute their duty with no worry of consequences and irrespective of what ever class, caste, ethnicity, and other considerations.”
We publish below the statement in complete
Exhumation of Wasim Thajudeen’s physique may possibly open an crucial page in criminal investigations
Subsequent Monday, 10 August 2015, the body of the effectively-identified rugby player and Havelock’s Captain, Wasim Thajudeen, will be exhumed on the orders of the Colombo Additional Magistrate. The Magistrate created this order on the basis of an application by the Criminal Investigations Division, which submitted reports stating that newly offered evidence suggests that Thajudeen’s death was caused by murder. Three Judicial Healthcare Officers will conduct the examination of the exhumed physique of Wasim Thajudeen.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) understands that substantial investigations have been conducted into this case. The investigations have revealed comprehensive information about the manner in which this alleged murder has taken place, like details about the abduction the injuries caused to Thajudeen, which led to his death the manner in which a fabricated crime scene was constructed, to develop the impression of death by accident as nicely as information of the persons involved in the murder, such as the masterminds.
The initiative taken by the Criminal Investigation Division to reinvestigate the alleged murder marks a new starting in Sri Lanka, exactly where, for several years, investigation into allegations of critical crimes including murder, enforced disappearances, abductions, and the like, have been hushed up, particularly when there is suspicion of politicians or their relatives becoming involved in such crimes.
There are lengthy lists of such cover-ups prominent circumstances consist of the daylight assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunge, the abduction and disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda, the assassination of former Tamil National Alliance Member of Parliament, Nadarajah Raviraj.
The AHRC also learned that some essential breakthroughs have also been made into the abductions and the disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda and with regards to the assassination of former TNA MP Raviraj.
For over two decades, the Asian Human Rights Commission, with each other with several other organisations, has warned that the administration of criminal justice has been seriously paralysed in Sri Lanka due to political factors. The AHRC has also regularly warned that the political scheme unleashed by the 1978 Constitution and the paralysis of the criminal justice administration is linked. Moreover, the AHRC has regularly communicated that the the paralysis of the criminal justice program will necessarily result in a breakdown of the legal program as a entire, which will, in turn, result in a serious societal crisis.
The initiative to exhume the physique of Wasim Thajudeen, as properly as developments in numerous circumstances brought to the courts by the Economic Crime Investigation Division of Sri Lanka Police, points to the administration of criminal justice in Sri Lanka heading in a constructive path. It is to be hoped that this trend will gather strength and that investigations into each and every crime will grow to be the standard practice, as it need to be in any nation possessing the capacity to enforce the rule of law. Consequently, the AHRC cautiously, but at the same time hopefully, welcomes these initiatives and urges the whole society to assistance such initiatives.
What is often lost in discussions relating to the upcoming election is the fact that criminal investigations are matters that go beyond the interest of any specific election. In truth, the whole problem goes to the extremely core of the meaning of statehood. No state can survive if the state abandons its principal duty to safeguard its citizens from crimes. The capacity and the will to investigate crimes is a way by which the state manifests its capacity and the will to safeguard its own people.
Therefore, these criminal investigations should be looked upon not as matters of sectarian interest for or against any specific political celebration but as a matter of far greater value than the outcome of an election. Whoever may possibly win or lose an election is a matter of people’s decision, but that every government ought to defend the people by way of a viable and a genuinely functioning criminal justice technique is matter of permanent interest.
January 8, 2015, has generally been viewed as a day that created the possibility of a shift away from the type of politics envisaged through the executive presidential system created by the 1978 Constitution. Within that scheme, a government was allowed to function outside the limits of legality and, in reality, the extremely idea of the legal boundaries to power was altogether abandoned.
January eight could, however, mark only the starting of the possibility of a alter of that catastrophic scheme. The realisation of this possibility is quite an additional matter. What the citizens have a proper to hope for is that the daring initiatives getting undertaken by the Criminal Investigation Division are an indication that such an actualisation is within people’s attain.
The criminal investigators who dare to take actions to uncover crimes that have been safely buried are taking huge dangers. In such moments of transition and risk, exactly where entrenched habits of inaction are getting broken, it is the duty of the citizenry to stand up to supply the moral assistance that duty conscious criminal investigators require. Below regular situations of a functioning democracy, a criminal investigation is a matter of routine. Nevertheless, exactly where such routine has been forgotten, the creating of a new starting is a tough process. Consequently, those who are taking the initial steps in that path should get the encouragement and help of the citizenry as a entire, irrespective of whatever political opinions distinct sections of the society might hold.
Instances when politicians can mockingly ask, “We are accused of crimes, but exactly where is the proof?” are chilling occasions. When a criminal can say “prove if you can” and the relevant institutions fail to do so, the society faces a single of the most frustrating moments in its collective psyche. When people grow to be psychologically discouraged and lose their will to pursue justice for the crimes they have suffered, such a society reaches its lowest depths. And, such is the scenario of the Sri Lankan society.
One of the principal aims of political adjust in the nation, for that reason, has to be the restoration of its criminal justice apparatus – to the point that the relevant operators in these institutions will dare to execute their duty with out fear of consequences and irrespective of what ever class, caste, ethnicity, and other considerations.