Trinco-5 Operations Commander Reappointed To Trinco As DIG Ahead Of Northern Election
July 9, 2013
As the Sri Lankan Government scrambles to address major outstanding issues of war-time accountability ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November and a scheduled visit of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Navi Pillay in August, a senior police official who allegedly spearheaded the murder of five students in Trincomalee in 2006 has been promoted as DIG and returned to the Eastern Province, Colombo Telegraph learns.
Kapila Jayasekara
DIG Kapila Jayasekara who assumed office as Ampara District DIG in April this year served 18 years in the Special Task Force and was SSP in charge of Trincomalee when the high profile murders of five Tamil youth took place in January 2006.
Seven plus years later, on June 23, 2013, DIG Jayasekera was appointed DIG Trincomalee, just days before President Mahinda Rajapaksa issued a proclamation constituting the Northern Provincial Council and announcing an election in the Province scheduled for September. DIG Jayasekera’s transfer was a strategic move ahead of the northern election, informed sources told the Colombo Telegraph.
As recently as April 2013, DIG Jayasekera had been appointed DIG Ampara and had barely served two months in the post.
12 STF personnel including an Assistant Superintendent of Police have been arrested and remanded in connection with the murder of the ‘Trinco Five’. However DIG Jayasekera, then SSP has not been implicated in the controversial murders despite his commanding position during the highly controversial killings. In its report of April 2, 2006, the University Teachers for Human Rights in Jaffna, the activist group said the killing of five Tamil youths at the Dutch Bay beach in Trincomalee on January 2 had been masterminded by the Police Superintendent of the area, Kapila Jayasekera.
