No Arrest On Gota’s Torture Camp; Navy Silent
November 20, 2015
A highly placed Navy official said today that the secret torture camp the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) is referring to could be the one commander Sampath Munasinghe, the personal bodyguard of the former Navy commander retired Admiral Wasantha Karannagodahad kept Tamil youth who were abducted in Colombo.
The officer who prefers not to be named said that the location where Munasinghe had kept prisoners too had been earlier used to store firearms.
The official said that he had no-knowledge of three Navy officers being arrested in connection with the recent revelations made by the UN working group, as claimed by some media. However he said that there was confusion within the Navy regarding the recent accusations.
The Navy officer pointed out that the UN groups claims during a media briefing in Colombo and the subsequent media reporting, especially by the foreign media drew a picture in the public mind that the said camp was a new finding, unearthed by the UN team.
Contrary to this notion the officer said that such torture chambers which existed during previous regimes time were discovered much earlier and was revealed in the media itself.
He said that the UN team was given wide access within the Navy base to visit any location they wished.
“The way the team presented facts before the media indicates that either they were highly excited about what they thought was a new finding or it demonstrates their lack of foresight and experience about local ground realities” he added.
The Navy official said that these torture chambers did not exist after 2011.
On October 21 the CID informed courts that 11 persons, mainly Tamil youth abducted by unidentified groups in Colombo and suburbs in 2008 – 2009, had been detained at the Trincomalee Navy camp.
