Children Threatened By CID Following FR Applications
A complaint has been lodged at the Witness Protection Unit following threats to children who had filed Fundamental Rights applications before the Supreme Court alleging that officers of the Criminal Investigations department had obtained signatures from them on sheets of paper.
Attorney-at-Law Hejaaz Hizbullah
Three children filed Supreme Court actions stating that they had been taken in for questioning without a parent or guardian to an undisclosed location by the CID.
The officers had shown them pictures of people and asked them if they had recieved weapons training. The children had replied in the negative after which they had been taken to an undisclosed location and questioned for 8 to 10 hours.
The Petitions say that the children were poor and destitute and were granted scholarships by a trust named Save the Pearls to the Al Zuhriya Arabic College.
The Save the Pearls trust is at the center of an investigation into Lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah. Hizbullah is being framed by the authorities as a terror mastermind and the obtaining of signatures from the children has been at the centre of the investigations.
Colombo Telegraph learns that following notice of the complaints, officers of the CID had called the children and threatened them over the last two days. They had insisted that the complaints and FR actions be withdrawn.
