The Credibility Gap
June 7, 2012
By Dharisha Bastians -
Dharisha Bastians
“I received information from a third party. Either myself or the government does not know anything about Eknaligoda – it is only God who knows.” - Former Attorney General Mohan Peiris, in a statement before the Homagama Magistrate on 5 June
Former Attorney General and now legal advisor to the Sri Lankan President, told the 47th Session of the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) in Geneva on 8 November 2011, that his government had information that journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda who has been missing since January 2010, was alive and secretly living outside Sri Lanka. In a prepared statement regarding Sri Lanka’s human rights record from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Subcommittee on prevention of on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the former AG said “an investigation into the abduction of Prageeth Eknaligoda is being conducted by the Homagama police and by the Colombo Crimes Division. Investigation is being continued. So far no one has been arrested in this connection.” Following the official presentation however, during a question and answer session, Peiris made the claim about Eknaligoda taking refuge in a foreign country and claimed that the campaign to win his release was a farce.
Nearly seven months later – Peiris answering a summons before the Homagama Magistrate, where a habeas corpus petition filed by Eknaligoda’s family in the Court of Appeal has been redirected for inquiry, rejected the statement he made before CAT in Geneva and claimed he could not remember the officer who informed him Eknaligoda was overseas. Adding insult to injury, the former state prosecutor told the court, not without a degree of frivolity, that the government knew nothing about Prageeth’s whereabouts and ‘only God knows’ what had become of him. Read More
