A Note On The Kobbekaduwe Commission Report

By Rajan Hoole -June 14, 2014

Rajan Hoole

Political Murders, the Commissions and the Unfinished Task – 2

An indication of the Commissioners’ reasoning is contained in the following on page 179 of the Report: “The Commission draws the irresistible inference after deliberation and consideration upon the evidence taken as a whole, that it is [the only one] consistent with the following:

Kobbekaduwe

- 2“Captain W.A.N.M. Weerasinghe was a member of the conspiracy with others in the Government and in the Army to assassinate General Kobbekaduwe and any others who may be present with him at that time…”

Among the reasons for holding that Weerasinghe was involved are:

1.)  Military Intelligence had told Kobbekaduwe of an assassination attempt on him in the North in a marginal area,

2.)  The fatal explosion was caused by a device attached to the vehicle,

3.)  Weerasinghe was an explosives expert on the scene recently transferred into the area,

4.)  Weerasinghe had been under an officer who had passed on government weapons to the LTTE upon President Premadasa’s bidding, which outraged Kobbekaduwe and

5.)  Weerasinghe’s testimony before the various inquiries into the incident had been contradictory and misleading.

Another ‘irresistible inference’ concerns the complicity of Colonel Stephen who also died in the blast which killed Kobbekaduwe. The reader would note that the argument is shaky in several places. On the cause of the explosion, Wyatt has differed from another British expert, Radmore. Technical arguments based on minutely refining hypotheses regarding evidence that is largely lost, cannot be conclusive. All the factors concerning Weerasinghe may have a relatively innocent explanation. If Weerasinghe’s association with a superior officer who handed over weapons to the LTTE is being brought in to throw suspicion on his character, then why not suspect also Generals Ranatunge and Wanasinghe through whom the instruction to hand over weapons was passed down? Kobbekaduwe was known to have been a favourite of Ranatunge. As concerning Stephen, if he were part of the plot, would it not have occurred to him that as the officer commanding the area that was crucial to a major military plan, Kobbekaduwe would have asked him to board the same ill-fated vehicle in order to confer with him?                                                                                 Read More