The person who had issued death threats over the phone to ‘Randiva’ sports editor and political columnist K.A.C.S.K. Irugalbandara (Chaminda Samankumara) has been revealed. The culprit is Mahinda Senarath Bandara, a secretary of minister Jeevan Kumaratunga. He had threatened the journalist after he had exposed, through an interview he had conducted with former sprinter Susanthika Jayasinghe, an attempt by minister Dilan Perera to become the National Olympic Committee chairman.
An officer of Mirihana Police yesterday (13) interrogated the newspaper journalist and obtained a statement, and asked him whether he wanted to get the matter settled.
Soon after the policeman left, Chaminda Samankumara had received a call from the same number from which he received the death threats.
The caller had told the journalist that the IGP had asked him what trouble he had got into.
SLM