A Special Police Investigation Unit (SIU) has opened an internal inquiry into possible lapses and negligence in the investigation into two containers holding more than 471 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine at the Colombo Port, the Daily Mirror reported.
The internal probe was begun on the instructions of Inspector General of Police Priyantha Weerasooriya, the Daily Mirror said, following what it described as observed shortcomings in the operational process.
The containers were imported from Pakistan and are held at the Colombo International Container Terminals (CICT). Five suspects were arrested after the drugs were found concealed inside them.
An opposition MP says the officers being investigated are the ones who made the seizure
Opposition parliamentarian Ajith P. Perera told Parliament that an investigation had been opened into the police officers who carried out the raid, including Senior Deputy Inspector General Ranmal Kodithuwakku.
Perera warned that such action could discourage honest officers from doing their duty, and questioned the decision to investigate the team responsible for the seizure while the government and its ministers repeatedly stress their commitment to fighting the drug trade.
The report does not say whether any officer has been named, suspended or interdicted, what the alleged lapses consist of, or who referred the matter to the IGP.
Police say the criminal case is unaffected
The internal disciplinary investigation will not disrupt or impede the primary criminal investigation into the seized narcotics, police said. That investigation is being conducted by the Central Crime Investigation Bureau, which the Daily Mirror reported police describe as proceeding with full transparency.
The seizure
The consignment is the one uncovered at the Colombo Port on 31 August, initially weighed at about 463 kilograms and revised upward as weighing continued. Five people — three Pakistani nationals and two Sri Lankans — were held under seven-day detention orders in early September.
Kodithuwakku’s name has appeared in that case before. Ada Derana reported that it was the Senior DIG who received information from an overseas private informant that a container suspected of holding crystal methamphetamine was at the port — making the officer now named in Parliament the one its earlier reporting credited with originating the operation.
That account is itself unsettled. The US Embassy in Colombo later said the intelligence had been developed by the DEA’s Foreign Counterparts Unit with Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force between 14 and 29 August, a version that does not match the private-informant account Sri Lankan police gave. Neither the Daily Mirror’s report nor any other has said whether that discrepancy is among the matters the SIU is examining, and no outlet has linked the two.
Two dates in one report
The Daily Mirror’s report, published on the morning of 11 September, places Perera’s remarks “yesterday (9)” — a date that is neither the day before publication nor consistent with itself. Parliament sat through the week, so both 9 and 10 September are possible. No other outlet has reported the exchange, so the day it took place cannot be fixed from the reporting.
The archive also carries the officer’s surname as Kodituwakku, the spelling Ada Derana used in its reporting on the seizure. The Daily Mirror writes Kodithuwakku. The two refer to the same officer.
Not reported
No outlet other than the Daily Mirror has carried the internal probe. There is no response from the IGP, from the Police Narcotics Bureau, from Kodithuwakku, or from any minister to Perera’s claim. It is not stated when the SIU inquiry began, how long it is expected to take, whether it concerns the handling of the containers before they were opened — they had sat in the port yard since June — or the conduct of the raid itself.
