Ex-IGP bluffs about Lasantha’s notebook!

- Dec 16, 2015

The then IGP Jayantha Wickremaratne has told the CID that he knew nothing about a note book on which slain ‘The Sunday Leader’ editor Lasantha Wickramatunga had awkwardly written, with his left hand, the numbers of the vehicles that had been ambushing him on 08 January 2009.

When Lasantha informed his closest friend, incumbent UNP chairman Malik Samarawickrama, that several suspicious vehicles were coming after him, the latter told him to take down their numbers and let him know them immediately. On his advice, Lasantha, while steering the car with his right hand, wrote down the vehicle numbers on the notebook with his left hand. But, before he could tell Malik about them, the assailants killed him.

Taking the notebook into its custody, the Mt. Lavinia police listed it as an item of evidence and was going to produce it before courts, when its headquarters inspector was told by the office of the DIG’s office at Mirihana to bring the notebook immediately. Before taking the notebook to the DIG’s office, a picture of it was taken while on the table of the HQI, which the CID has come into possession now.

The then Mirihana DIG has given a statement to the CID that he had handed over the notebook to the IGP at the time, Wickremaratne. Based on that, the CID summoned the ex-police chief and what he first told them was that he had given it to the then defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. But, after reading the statement and before signing it, he has asked that Gotabhaya’s name be omitted.

However, the CID is now trying to enlarge the picture of the notebook and get the vehicle numbers in it. Anyway, CID officials say both Wickremaratne and Gotabhaya well know what had happened to the notebook.