The Joint Opposition (JO) has alleged that the recent arrest of former Army Chief of Staff and head of Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) Maj. Gen. Amal Karunasekera over his alleged involvement in the abduction and assault on The Nation Deputy Editor Keith Noyahr was connected to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) agreement with the UNP to save its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe from the no-faith motion moved on April 4, reports Shamindra Ferdinando of The Island.
The rest of the report fellows.
Noyahr was abducted and assaulted in late May 2008.
Gampaha District MP and JO spokesman Sisira Jayakody has said so when The Island strongly objected to Jayakody accusing the government of taking up cases in higher courts instead of settling them in Samatha Mandalayas (mediation boards).
Karunasekera has been remanded till April 18 pending further investigations carried out by the CID. The Island sought an explanation from Jayakody as to why he felt abduction of Noyahr as well as the assassination of The Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunga in early January 2009 could be settled at a mediation board.
Jayakody insisted that the UNP-Sirisena government was targeting selected group of officers and men responsible for the successful execution of military operations. Karunasekera was among the targeted officers, the MP alleged.
Asked whether the JO could justify calls for settling cases of abductions and assassinations at mediation boards the MP said the DMI officers holding senior ranks were being harassed by the current dispensation over their alleged involvement in the disappearance of media personality Prageeth Ekneligoda on the eve of January 26, 2010 presidential polls. Jayakody said that one of the officers had been in remand for over one year though he never was involved in Ekneligoda abduction. This was revealed only after the officer’s ailing father filed a fundamental rights petition.
Jayakody claimed that some clauses of the latest UNP-TNA agreement hadn’t been made public.
Asked by The Island whether the JO had forgotten the TNA’s track record beginning with the ordering of presidential polls boycott in 2005 Nov. at the behest of the LTTE, support extended to General Sarath Fonseka at January 2010 presidential polls after having accused of his victories Army of massacring over 40,000 civilians and finally throwing it weight behind Maithripala Sirisena at the last presidential polls, MP Bandula Gunawardena claimed that they were studying the TNA. Gunawardena insisted they weren’t anti-Tamil and the Rajapaksa administration did a tremendous amount of work in the North and the East after the conclusion of the war in May 2009.