Multiple warrants out for scribe’s attackers: Police
Tuesday, 27 August 2013 00:07
-
- {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Dharisha Bastians
There were multiple warrants out for the arrest of at least two suspects in Police custody following the pre-dawn attack on the residence of senior The Sunday Leader journalist and media activist Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema, Police Spokesman SSP Buddhika Siriwardane said yesterday.
Four suspects are in custody after the Police confronted armed men inside Abeywickrema’s home on Saturday morning. One person was killed in an altercation with the Police. At least two suspects have been identified as Army deserters. Police are insisting the attack on the scribe’s home was an attempted burglary.
Siriwardane said there were five warrants issued by the Avissawella Magistrate against one suspect Indika Sampath Kumarasiri for robberies and his brother Rohitha Lakshman is also wanted by the Avissawella magistrate on eight counts of assault and robbery. Army Spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya has denied the Army’s involvement in the incident.
Abeywickrema said the attackers had held her at knifepoint and stripped her home of valuables including money and gold jewellery. The five men had claimed they were “contracted” to rob her house and abduct her, she said. The group had also rifled through files and documents in the house, the journalist said.
Abeywickrema, who is the Associate Editor of The Sunday Leader, recently launched a journalists’ trade union – the Sri Lanka Journalists Trade Union (SLJTU) – of which she holds the presidency. The carcass of a dead cat was thrown into her garden and her car tyres were slashed two days prior to the attack on Abeywickrema’s residence, the journalist said.
Media rights groups have expressed concern about the attack in the backdrop of serious attacks against the free press and demanded a swift inquiry into the incident. An alarming number of attacks on journalists in Sri Lanka have gone un-investigated, including the murder of Abeywickrema’s former Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge.
The UNP yesterday raised what it called grave suspicions on the invasion of Abeywickrema’s home on Saturday. UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said the Government was doing all it could to prove it was a robbery.
“Since investigations are still ongoing we do not want to make assumptions, but several questions remain about the suspects,” he said.
