The Police Investigation Into The Vijaya Kumaratunge Murder
By Rajan Hoole -August 16, 2014
Rajan Hoole
Political Murders, the Commissions and the Unfinished Task – 11
Any suggestion that the investigation into the Vijaya Kumaratunge (VK) murder was ‘lacklustre’ (KPJ, see Sect.19.8.1) during the Jayewardene presidency is probably unfair. Until about the end of 1988, as the Commission has also recorded, the CID and CDB had regular conferences in which the progress on the VK investigation was among the subjects discussed. According to a senior official, these conferences may have lapsed for a number of reasons. They were waiting to see the intentions of the new government and foreign trips of senior officials too may have intervened. It is a fact that photographs and descriptions of Lionel and Tarzan were circulated, and it is these that helped Dias and Basil of the CDB to apprehend Lionel in March 1989. If there was interference, it started after Premadasa was made presidential candidate, besides being prime minister, so that the defence officials were bound to listen to him.
Lionel Ranasinghe alias Gamini upon arrest on 14th March 1989 was taken to VK’s area, questioned about the murder and the locations. SP Gamini Perera was immediately convinced that they got the right man. Lionel gave them a long list of persons whom he had killed – nearly 50. He also led them to an Uzi sub-machine gun, which he had apparently stolen from STF men travelling in a bus and hidden at Punchi (Small) Borella. The CDB was also convinced that Lionel was a straight JVP killer – an extra-ordinary marksman, but with no political sense. According to an officer then in the CDB, “When we take in a criminal element, we normally give him a beating. But with Gamini [Lionel] we did not so much as pinch him. He came out with everything quite spontaneously.”
This officer also deemed the transfer of the investigation to the CID quite legitimate, since the case was an important one, and because while the CDB is confined to the Colombo metropolis, the CID has greater resources and an island-wide coverage. As to the Commission’s charge that the CID conducted no serious inquiry, this too is defended by the CDB officer on the grounds that JVP names like Asoka and Jayantha (given by Lionel) are simply names which offer no further leads than LTTE names like Kumar and Visu.