Colombo’s deceptions on Tamil political prisoners continue unabated

Reginald Cooray, the SL Governor to North and the officials of the SL Presidential Secretariat in Colombo have systematically misled the families of the three Tamil political prisoners along with NPC Councillor M.K. Shivajilingam, who was negotiating with the SL President on their behalf, legal sources in Jaffna said. The prisoners were on a fast-unto-death for 38 days objecting their case being transferred to Anuradhapura court, where it was to be addressed by a Sinhala judge. The SL Governor and the officials of the SL Presidential Secretariat had ‘advised’ Mr Shivajilingam and the families of the prisoners to lodge an appeal against the transfer of the case to Anuradhapura in the Appeal Court of Colombo and had promised that the SL Attorney General would be cooperating with transferring their case back to Vavuniyaa by not attending the hearings at the Appeal Court in Colombo.

However, the SL AG has made representations to the Appeal Court on 29 November.

The SL AG has urged the Appeal Court to provide more time to respond on the alleged ‘security concern’ of one of the witnesses, who had declined to appear at the Vavuniyaa court.

The witness is a former prisoner, Vanniyasingam Sujeevan from Paranthan. He was recently released by the TID, the legal sources in Jaffna said.

It was Sujeevan who alerted the families of the three prisoners that the TID had released three prisoners including himsef from Bossa detention on the condition that they testify against the three with false confessions.

Mr Sujeevan has managed to leave the island and alert the families of the cunning move by the SL TID.

Now, the SL Attorney General's Department is asking time to bring Mr Sujeevan, who has in fact managed to escape from their manipulation, the sources say.

The next hearing is scheduled for 12 December at the Appeal Court in Colombo. But, it seems like the SL Attorney General's Department would again attempt to buy more time.

The three political prisoners, Mathiyarasan Sulaxan, Rasathurai Thiruvarul and Ganesan Tharshan, called off their 38-day long fast-unto-death campaign as their protest was systematically ignored by the Colombo Establishment.

The political prisoners abandoned their hunger strike after the University community promised to take up their struggle.

The three prisoners have been detained for 8 years since 2009 and for 4 years no case was filed against them.

The so-called Terrorist Investigation Division fabricated the case against them with manipulated witnesses against them.

Knowing that such evidences would not be easily accepted by the judge of Vavuniyaa High Court, the SL AG transferred their cases to Anuradhapura Special Court amidst repeated protests from the political prisoners and their families.