The Colombo Fort Magistrate on Tuesday issued notice on the Director of the National Hospital, Colombo, ordering him to appear in court on 22 September and show cause for failing to submit reports on the medical condition of former State Intelligence Service chief Suresh Salley.

The reports had been ordered by the court on 2 September, the Daily Mirror reported. The Magistrate also directed the director to explain why reports requested by a five-member medical board had not been provided to that board either.

Hiru News reported that the notice followed the director’s failure to produce, at Tuesday’s sitting, a report the court had sought on whether Salley should receive inpatient treatment at the National Hospital.

The order was made on an application by Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris, appearing for the Criminal Investigation Department, according to Hiru News.

Salley remains held under detention orders for questioning in the investigation into the Easter Sunday attacks.

A medical question the court has been chasing since June

Salley’s health has been contested ground in this case for months. He was hospitalised from CID custody in June, and a Judicial Medical Officer’s report that month recorded a PTSD diagnosis and findings relating to five locations. His lawyers have separately raised his conditions in detention and his access to counsel.

Tuesday’s notice is not a finding against the hospital — it is an order to appear and explain. What the reports would say, and whether inpatient admission is being recommended, is exactly what the court has not yet been told.

The two outlets differ on the magistrate’s name

The Daily Mirror names the magistrate Pasan Amarasekara; Hiru News names him Pasan Amarasena. NewsFirst, reporting a separate matter before the same court on the same day, also uses Amarasena. The spelling is unresolved from the reporting and both are given here as filed.

The same magistrate this week also referred a contempt of court complaint against six people, including two former ministers, to the Court of Appeal over statements allegedly made at a July protest against Salley’s arrest.

Update (September 15): prosecution alleges a “premeditated medical conspiracy”

NewsFirst, reporting the same sitting later on Tuesday, set out the argument that produced the order. The notice on the hospital director was not a stand-alone procedural step — it followed a direct allegation from the prosecution about why Salley is still in a hospital bed.

Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris told court that Salley had been an inpatient at the National Hospital since 7 June and had now completed 100 days there. Presenting a further report on the investigation’s progress, he said investigators suspected Salley was remaining in hospital unnecessarily, without any serious medical condition, and that the prolonged stay may have been intended to delay the investigation and shield others connected to the offences under scrutiny. He called it a “premeditated medical conspiracy” and urged the court to examine why the ordered medical reports had never been filed.

The ASG set out the sequence as the prosecution sees it: Salley first relied on a psychiatric report placed before court describing severe mental distress and suicidal tendencies in detention; he then began a hunger strike shortly after a foreign travel ban was imposed on former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the Easter investigation; and he was admitted to the National Hospital on 7 June.

NewsFirst names the magistrate Pasan Amarasena, matching Hiru News against the Daily Mirror’s Pasan Amarasekara. The spelling split noted below is now two outlets to one.

These are prosecution submissions, not findings. No medical evidence contradicting Salley’s reported condition has been placed before the court — which is the point of the order: the reports the court has asked for twice still have not arrived.

The substantive allegations the prosecution made at the same sitting — an informant tracking Zahran Hashim from 2018, a suppressed intelligence chain and a travel ban on a former police inspector — are covered separately.

Not reported

Neither outlet names the hospital director, says how many times the reports have been sought, or states what sanction the director faces if no cause is shown on 22 September. No response from the National Hospital or the Health Ministry is recorded in any of the three reports, and none gives the findings of the five-member medical board or says whether it has met.

Sources