BY Nadeeka Dissanayake
Six suspects of the 2023 Weligama shooting incident in front of the W15 Hotel, who surrendered to the Matara Magistrate’s Court through a Motion, were released on bail while IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon was re-remanded until 3 April last Thursday (20), by the Court.
IGP Tennakoon is currently suspended by Court from performing duties and functions in his official capacity. One suspect, the Acting Officer in Charge of the Weligama Police station was earlier released on bail on 4 March, following his surrender to the Court.
Around 6 March the issued a request from the public seeking their assistance in locating the evading IGP Tennakoon. He, while on the ‘run’, through his lawyers, filed a writ application at the Court of Appeal seeking an order to prevent his arrest, which was dismissed by the CA on 17 March. The next day, the CID during a search in Deshabandu’s house in Hokandara, said to have found 1,009 bottles of liquor – 795 foreign brands, and 214 wine bottles and a pistol.
On 19 March, Deshabandu Tennakoon surrenders to the Court after evading his arrest for nearly 20 days. He has been transferred to the Angunakoalpelessa maximum security prison under special security on the same day evening.
The case of the shooting in front of W15 Hotel in Pelena, Weligama came in to limelight with the instructions from the Ministry of Public Security in October 2024 to the Acting IGP Priyantha Weerasooriya, to dig deeper into the incident and several other crimes of ambiguous nature. Following the investigations of the Police and the case being produced before the Court, the Matara Magistrate ordered the arrest of Deshabandu Tennakoon, on 28 February, based on the Criminal Investigations Department’s findings presented to the Court. The incident investigated refers to a shooting in front of the W15 Hotel in Weligama, that happened on 31 December 2023, which ended with a death of a Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) officer, who was one of the CCD team members went in disguise to Weligama to arrest criminal associates of underworld kingpin Nadun Chinthaka Wickremeratne a.k.a. ‘Harak Kata’. A preliminary inquest into the incident was conducted at the Matara Chief MC, and the verdict was announced on 27 March. Following this, the CID was instructed to arrest and produce eight individuals, including Tennakoon, before the Court.
As seen before…
Sri Lankans are quite familiar with these types of law enforcement plus judicial drama of well-known figures, which runs in media for weeks.
Parallel to these scenes, the Colombo High Court issued a decision of another case, a previous drama of former health minister Keheliya Rambukwella. On 20 March the Colombo HC has rejected the request to ‘unfreeze’ former minister’s bank accounts at the Parliamentary branch.
Rambukwella’s case whirls around the importation of inferior immunoglobulin vaccines. Investigations following the revelation by the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) of forged documents being submitted to the Sri Lanka Customs on an importation of human immunoglobulin, Keheliya Rambukwella was arrested on 2 February by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and produced before the Courts. Following the investigations the health ministry secretary at that time Janaka Chandraguptha and several other officers were also arrested in connection with the same fraud.
This was the first time in history where a sitting Cabinet minister has been arrested, apart from it being the first time for Rambukwella as well.
Citizens have witnessed such incidents in the history, where actions due to corruption of power has resulted in only creating a drama until the arrest and bail out. What the country has lost was never being recovered. The abovementioned two incidents depicts the possible ‘grand finale’ of popular corrupt figures. And these were not the first times such happened – and with the understanding of Sri Lankan political culture cannot expect it to be the last.
Along with numerous rules and regulations implemented against crime and fraud, these practices still continue by powerful people without a speck of fear and ambiguity. The reasons for such unending habits among the powerful are complicated. Is it that the powerful committing crime and fraud has become a general norm? Or is it that the current laws and regulations are too porous to hold the ever evolving corrupts?
Given the nature of the continuous practice of crime and fraud, it seems to be a proper time for the decision-makers, policymakers to re-evaluate the current situation and decide on a better strategy that would keep the country safe for another 50 years. Be it introducing fresh laws or amending the existing ones, policymakers should also understand that these frauds and crimes are evolving with new technology and this ‘dark-mode’ of technology is faster in advancing compared to that of the positive, good side of technology.
As such, in other 10 years, the Sri Lankan future may have to witness more of a ‘sci-fi’ drama in fraud and crime. Therefore, it is the utmost duty of the policymakers, lawmakers to create far stronger barriers to safe guard the country from corruption and crime.