Seventeen army soldiers attached to the Army Military Intelligence Unit but also identified as having worked “closely” with former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka are being held by the TID/CID.

Detectives, having begun a very belated investigation are now attempting to identify those who followed The Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge on Thursday, January 8, 2009 as he drove from his home in Nugegoda to Battaramulla and then onto to Attidiya where he was killed.

A serious investigation into the attacks on journalists began after General Fonseka contested the presidential elections as the common opposition candidate. In the immediate aftermath of Wickrematunge’s murder opposition leaders accused General Fonseka of responsibility.

The investigators are inquiring into the possible involvement of General Fonseka after a very senior official at the Defence Ministry revealed that the former Army Commander told him, “I did not intend to kill Lasantha – I only wanted him hurt – but they killed him.” This is according to senior officials conducting the investigation.

Investigators have now succeeded in taking into custody five mobile telephones which on the day Lasantha was killed moved in the same pattern as Wickrematunge’s phone, following his path from his home at Kandewatte Terrace – Nugegoda – to Robert Gunewardena Mawatha – Battaramulla – and then onto Attidiya.

The phones passed through 11 cellular phone towers starting from Balapokuna Road – Nugegoda and ending at Attidiya.

Police sleuths have found that the five numbers have not been used before or since the day of the killing. However they have not been disconnected either.

One of the five phones appears to have been used to monitor and control the entire operation. A track path of the calls made between the five telephones indicates that they communicated regularly with each other constantly calling one mobile phone used by a person in Nugegoda.

Police believe only two motorbikes were used despite some eyewitness accounts describing four bikes at the scene of the crime.One of the five phone numbers indicated on the mobile path shows a call having been made at Bakery Junction – Attidiya – at the exact spot Lasantha was attacked. Sleuths believe this phone was carried by the killer – the man who actually carried out the attack.

No weapon has been traced as yet. Sleuths remain undecided as to whether Wickrematunge was shot dead at point blank range, killed using a “Stun Gun” or fatally wounded by a long nail attached to the end of a pole.

Doctors who attended on Wickrematunge at the Kalubowila Hospital in an initial report said that Wickrematunge had been killed as a result of “firing.” However, later the post mortem report said “There is an entry wound – no exit wound. Nor a spent bullet inside.”

This led to speculation first published in The Sunday Leader that Wickrematunge had been killed by the use of a “Stun Gun”; a weapon that temporarily disables a person with an electric shock.

With no real clues having emerged as yet, there being no spent bullet casing or cartridge found, police appear to be running with this theory based entirely on the speculative report carried in this newspaper.

Of the 17 soldiers being held in this regard, detectives have narrowed the field down to seven prime suspects. Seven men who on the day Wickrematunge was killed and on the day Upali Tennakoon, the then editor of the Sinhala Sunday newspaper Rivira was assaulted were out on ‘surveillance’.

There however have been no evidence whatsoever that these seven men were indeed involved in the two attacks. No witnesses have come forward to identify the attackers in either case.

Lasantha’s wife Sonali Samarasinghe Wickrematunge described seeing two men on a black motorcycle as they sped past her home at Battaramulla. She said, they wore helmets and black fatigues and “stared us down as we got out of the car.”

She later recounted, “Lasantha wanted to talk with them. He even walked toward them but I hurried him into the house and locked the door. It was a disturbing moment but not an unusual one.”

“I begged Lasantha to stay home that day, but on Thursdays he was always in a hurry. It was the day he wrote his influential political column, Suranimala. Meanwhile, the motorcyclists had vanished and Lasantha felt confident he could handle any lingering threat. He was determined to go to work. He was used to this,” she said.

Police have meanwhile also arrested and remanded one Jesudason from Nuwara Eliya who apparently owns a garage.

All of the five telephones used in the attack were registered in the name of Jesudason. When quizzed by detectives Jesudason claimed he lost his Identity Card – which would have been required to purchase the SIM cards for the five mobile phones. Jesudason however never made a formal complaint to the police regarding the loss of his ID.

He has however confessed to sharing a drink now and then with a soldier who he says identified himself as being a member of the Sinha Regiment of the Army. This soldier, is among the seven currently detained by the CID/TID. At the time of the arrest of this soldier he was a member of the army’s Military Intelligence Directorate headed at the time by Major General Amal Karunasekera.

At the time Sarath Fonseka was appointed Chief of Defense Staff Brigadier Amal Karunasekera was tipped to be among a number of senior officers from the army to be appointed to top posts in the CDS office.

He was however subsequently chosen to join Sri Lanka’s diplomatic service and posted as the Charge d’Affaires in the new Sri Lanka Mission to be opened in Eritrea.

Maj. Gen. Karunasekera, played a key role in the military campaign against Tiger guerrillas and is identified as being a close confidant of Sarath Fonseka.

Sleuths are now investigating why and how Karunasekera transferred a significant sum of monies to the army’s Head Quarters Battalion Account during or roundabout the period when Wickrematunge was assassinated. The dispensing of monies from this account is entirely the prerogative of the serving army commander.

Previously, Keith Noyahr, Associate Editor and Defence Correspondent of The Nation weekly newspaper was abducted from outside his home and brutally tortured on May 23, 2008. The assailants in that attack were also believed to have been acting on the orders of General Fonseka who was Army Commander at the time.

Noyahr subsequently left the country together with his young family vowing never to return. He also remained tight-lipped refusing to identify or indicate who his attackers were insisting that he had been warned of dire reprisals if he did so.

A month later Namal Perera was ruthlessly attacked on a busy highway at Kirulapone at 5.30 p.m. as he was driven home by a close friend – Mahendra Ratnaweera. The assailants failed in their attempt to abduct him. Perera too was perceived to have fallen foul of Fonseka and thus targeted.

When the presidential election campaign of General Fonseka commenced at a public forum organised by Lakshman Watawala where Fonseka was the guest speaker a question was posed to him by The Sunday Leader whether he killed Lasantha. He did not respond maintaining that was not the forum.

On a second occasion when General Fonseka was the Chief Guest at the AGM of the Colombo Lawyers’ For Democracy held at the Galadari Hotel a written question was sent up to him asking the same question. He replied, “kudu-karayas masquerading as politicians would have done it.”

The third occasion was when The Sunday Leader asked him the same question at an interview held in his political office on December 8, 2009 when he side-tracked the question, mumbling vaguely, alleging kudu-karayas protected by politicians were responsible. ~ courtesy: The Sunday Leader ~