Attorney-at-law Hejaaz Hizbullah, who spent 21 months in detention under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) over the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks probe before being released on bail, has publicly urged former State Intelligence Service (SIS) chief Suresh Salley to fight his case from inside custody, NewsFirst reported.
“If he is innocent, Salley must stay strong and fight his case. That’s what we did. We prayed, exercised, read, met our lawyers, and fought our cases,” Mr. Hizbullah said in a statement carried by the broadcaster. “Salley, who detained us, knows that the conditions for us were worse than what it is for him. The fight to repeal the PTA is not won by running away from it but in confronting it.”
Mr. Hizbullah was arrested on 14 April 2020 under the PTA over alleged links to extremists implicated in the Easter Sunday bombings. He was held under successive detention orders for 21 months before being released on bail by the Court of Appeal on 7 February 2022. The Attorney General later withdrew the indictment against him.
The intervention is the most pointed message yet to Mr. Salley from inside the constituency of former PTA detainees. Mr. Salley, a retired Major General, was arrested on 25 February 2026 under the PTA in the CID’s reopened Easter probe and has been held under successive detention orders since. He was admitted to the Colombo National Hospital late on 7 June after his condition deteriorated, the CID told the Fort Magistrate’s Court. Family members say he is on a hunger strike, stopping food, water and medication, and several opposition groups have mounted a Satyagraha at Colombo Fort Railway Station to demand his release.
The case sits alongside a TNA-led parliamentary motion to repeal the PTA and broader opposition criticism from Mr. Salley’s own former allies that the government is now misusing the same law it previously campaigned to abolish.
