President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Wednesday told an audience in Batticaloa that “no amount of shouting or pressure” would obstruct law enforcement reaching individuals who had previously operated above the law.
“When the law begins to reach those who once stood above it, they become agitated,” the President said. “They are not accustomed to respecting the law. As the law draws closer, they react with outrage.”
The Criminal Investigation Department, the Colombo Crimes Division and the Narcotics Bureau were currently engaged in extensive investigative work, he said, with arrests already made, others pending and trials underway. He did not name individual cases.
Dissanayake framed the remarks around institutional independence: the police had the authority to investigate, the Attorney General’s Department to file cases and the judiciary to ensure fair trials. “No one will interfere in your investigations. No one will interfere in judicial processes.”
He added that the government held “no hatred or anger toward anyone” but was discharging a responsibility entrusted by the public to build “a society where everyone lives within the boundaries of the law.” Legal reforms would be introduced if existing frameworks proved too restrictive, he said.
The speech was delivered during the President’s Eastern Province visit, which also covered the country’s dollar squeeze and fuel imports. It came on the same day the Attorney General’s Department revealed in Fort Magistrate’s Court that three Rajapaksa family members had visited Pillayan in Batticaloa Prison after the Easter attacks, and as proceedings continued in the Chandrasena bail fraud case.
