Former State Intelligence Service chief Suresh Salley did not come before court with clean hands and his writ petition should be dismissed without notice even being issued, Deputy Solicitor General Suharshi Herath told the Court of Appeal on Monday.
Salley filed the petition challenging his arrest and detention in connection with investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks. The matter is being heard before a bench comprising Court of Appeal President Justice Rohantha Abeysuriya and Justice Priyantha Fernando.
The state’s central objection concerned the petitioner’s travel documents. Herath told court that Salley had stated he left for India on January 3, 2019, to attend a defence course and returned only in December that year. During questioning by the Criminal Investigation Department about his travel documents, she said, Salley stated that after returning from his posting at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Malaysia he had handed his diplomatic passport to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He has nonetheless produced a certified copy of that same diplomatic passport before court, Herath said, asking how that was possible if the document had in fact been surrendered. When counsel for Salley then attempted to produce the diplomatic passport in court, the Deputy Solicitor General objected, alleging the petitioner had falsely claimed not to hold it and had thereby attempted to mislead investigators.
Responding to submissions that CID Director Shani Abeysekara should be removed from the investigation, Herath traced the petition’s history, noting it was first taken up on May 7 and that successive hearings had raised different grounds — statements by Azad Maulana, allegations of torture in custody, and claims regarding a United States FBI investigation into the attacks.
She also told court that former CID Deputy Inspector General Prasad Ranasinghe had given a statement describing how Salley allegedly obstructed the Easter Sunday investigations, including over whether a woman named Sarah Jasmine had died in the 2019 Sainthamaruthu explosion or survived and fled to India.
Separately, Attorney-at-Law Suren D. Perera, appearing for Rev. Fr. Rohan Silva, a respondent in the petition, said the Jayaki De Alwis Commission Report submitted by the petitioner had never been officially published and that what was filed was a photocopy of a report presented at a media briefing by former minister Udaya Gammanpila. The President of the Court of Appeal directed counsel for the petitioner to clarify the matter at the next hearing.
