Thilina Gamage : A man in the Law of the Jungle!
( June 17, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Attorney General (AG) instructed the CID Director to take legal action against former Additional Magistrate Thilina Gamage to produce him before a court for allegedly possessing a baby elephant without a valid licence.
The AG has given this instruction after taking into consideration the fact that the former Magistrate’s bail has been suspended by the Colombo High Court until June 21. On June 13, Colombo High Court Judge Manilal Waidyatilleke issued an Interim Order suspending the operation of Nugegoda Magistrate’s bail order in respect of former Colombo Additional Magistrate Thilina Gamage over the alleged possession of a baby elephant without a valid licence and with regard to several suspicious alterations in the elephant registration.
High Court Judge Manilal Waidyatilleke made this order consequent to a revision application filed by The Attorney General and CID challenging the Nugegoda Magistrate’s order on legal grounds.
On June 2, issuing an order directing to release the suspect on bail, Nugegoda Magistrate Kanishka Wijeratne observed that the elephant calf in question cannot be considered as a public property since the Wildlife Director General had issued a licence on a previous occasion.
Accordingly, Thilina Gamage was ordered to be released on cash bail of Rs. 500,000 with four sureties of Rs. 2.5 million.
The elephant calf was named Sakura (Reg. No. 334). The value of the elephant calf was estimated as Rs. 6.9 million.
