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Tuesday, 30 July 2019 01:03 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Attorney General (AG) Dappula De Livera has rushed to indict and silence a former Non-Executive Director of Perpetual Treasuries Ltd. (PTL) without any evidence, just weeks before he was scheduled to provide Police with damning evidence about a vast variety of crimes allegedly involving Arjun Aloysius and his overseas assets, according to a Writ application taken up yesterday at the Court of Appeal. The Writ was filed by Ajahn Punchihewa, the 10th accused in the indictment filed by De Livera on 27 February 2015 Treasury bond scam, in which Aloysius and then Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran are alleged to have conspired to rig the bond auction to benefit PTL, a primary dealer owned by Aloysius and his family.
In an affidavit filed by Punchihewa in the Appeal Court, he states that even though he was appointed to the board of PTL on 18 February 2015, he had no involvement with the company until mid-March, when he attended his first board meeting and met other PTL board members and executives for the first time. He elaborates that as a result, “none of the B-reports pertaining to the alleged matter contain any evidence against me except the fact that I was a Director or PTL”.
Punchihewa left Sri Lanka in 2017 and was living in Singapore when the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in March emailed him seeking a statement for the bond scam investigations. The following day, Punchihewa replied to the email “with bona fide willingness to fully cooperate with the investigations”.
He further corresponded with the CID, and continued cooperating with them, he states. On 17 April, he received a Notice in Singapore from the Colombo Fort Magistrates Court formally instructing him to make a statement on or before 26 June.
Punchihewa states that by the time he received the Notice, he “had already commenced gathering further information connected to the affairs of PTL as well as the assets of Arjun Aloysius and his family, in order to assist the ongoing investigations, and in preparation to provide a detailed and truthful statement”.
He describes measures he took including obtaining records from Standard Chartered Bank, and obtaining electronic records from the Singapore Government “including incorporation documents for a suspicious company” involving relatives of Aloysius, and “the title deed for the penthouse apartment in Singapore occupied by Arjun Aloysius and his wife, whose owner is a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands named Perpetual Holdings Worldwide Ltd.”
Punchihewa annexed these documents to his Writ, placing them in the public record along with evidence that “during August 2017, the name of this company was altered to remove the word perpetual”, at the height of the investigations by the Commission of Inquiry into the Treasury bond scam.
The CID has long sought to trace suspected proceeds of crime connected to Aloysius and his entities overseas, and investigators considered the material being collected and offered up by Punchihewa as a potential goldmine.
However, he was “shocked and astounded” when on 7 June, over two weeks before he was set to make his statement and hand over the materials he had collected on 26 June, the AG had sought permission from the Chief Justice to file an indictment against him before the Permanent High Court at Bar, without even having recorded his statement.
On 10 June, Punchihewa wrote to CID Director Shani Abeysekara, with whom he had previously been in contact, stating that he was “stunned” at the decision by the AG to indict him without getting his statement.
He told the CID that if the AG reverses his decision to charge him, “I remain eager to assist the investigation, and provide information, investigative material and evidence that I believe will be valuable to the CID and to the AG in the interests of justice”. Punchihewa asked the CID to keep his cooperation confidential for his security and to prevent the destruction of evidence, according to an email he sent to the CID that was filed in court.
According to the Writ, Punchihewa’s lawyer thereafter spoke with the CID director on 12 June and met with senior officers of the AG’s Department on 13 June to arrange for Punchihewa to take his statement and evidence in secret. However, that same day, the AG had surreptitiously shut down the investigation and ordered that Punchihewa be charged, despite no evidence against him being available with the CID or reported to the Magistrate’s Court.
Punchihewa’s attorney, Rasika Weeratunga, wrote to the AG again on the morning of 28 June reiterating that there was “absolutely no evidence” against him except for a “legal notion” of his directorship. He sought an urgent appointment to meet De Livera, offering to unconditionally surrender incriminatory material from Punchihewa. However, the AG did not respond, and instead indicted Punchihewa the same day, according to the Writ.
On 18 July, Weeratunga again wrote to the AG, stressing that the decision to indict Punchihewa was taken “notwithstanding the lack of evidence disclosed” against him “in the illegal commission or omission of any act” either before the Magistrates Court or at the Bond Commission.
When the AG did not respond, another attorney, President’s Counsel Anura Meddegoda wrote to the AG on Punchihewa’s behalf saying that he would be compelled to file a Writ application in the Court of Appeal against the AG if he was not willing to voluntarily withdraw the indictment against him. After the AG failed to respond, Punchihewa filed Writ Application Number 311/2019 last Wednesday.
The case was taken up yesterday before a specially constituted bench of Justices Shiran Gunaratne, Mahinda Samayawardhana and Arjuna Obeysekera. Punchihewa was represented by President’s Counsels Uditha Egalahewa and Anura Meddegoda, and Attorney N.K. Ashokbharan, instructed by Lanka Dharmasiri.
The AG, represented by Additional Solicitor General Parinda Ranasinghe, undertook not to take any action against Punchihewa until the date that the case was fixed for support, on 10 September. Through the Writ, Punchihewa is seeking to quash the indictment against him.
