Monday Nov 18, 2024
Monday Nov 18, 2024
Monday, 11 March 2024 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The scourge of the drug menace has long been one of Sri Lanka’s main problems in achieving prosperity and the social wellbeing of its people. For decades, there have been thousands upon thousands of reports on various drug busts and prosecutions. Yet daily the numbers of drug users in the Country increase and the quantities of narcotics recovered keep going higher and higher, with many of the cases making headlines in the news.
The recent “Yukthiya” operation initiated by the new IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon and Public Security Minister Tiran Alles has been cited as the “operation that will save the future generation of the country” by the Minister. The IGP has pledged to “dedicate the maximum capacity of the Sri Lanka Police Force” to the same.
However, a Fundamental Rights application filed in 2021 by an officer of the Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB) Sumedha Weerasinghe in which Saliya Peiris, PC appeared, was dismissed by the Supreme Court last Thursday, highlighting the reality of the drug menace in Sri Lanka.
The case also brought to light the re-appointment of Suspect Police Narcotics Bureau officers to key institutions within the Police, under the administration of the very same Minister and the new IGP conducting the “Yukthiya” operation. This could also be one of the probable reasons why the Drug Menace is not being wiped out despite the wide media publicity and promises made, and why in truth this Menace grows like a cancer that cannot be stopped.
Interestingly, the Fundamental Rights case was won by the State, represented by Senior State Counsel Shaminda Wickrema, but the proceedings that took place proved how the citizens have always lost, and the suspected corrupt officers have always won, when it comes to the drug wars in Sri Lanka.
The Petitioner is one of the suspects in an ongoing investigation, in which 19 Police officers are suspected of importing, repackaging and trafficking hundreds of kilograms of Heroin illegally, under the guise of regular narcotics policing operations. The charges against the suspects include offences under the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Act, Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, Public Property Act and the Conventions against Illicit Trafficking of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. In a separate case, investigations are proceeding against some of these same suspects including the Petitioner on offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
All of the suspect police officers were granted bail by the High Court at various points of time.
The suspect Police Narcotics Bureau officer - Petitioner claimed his Fundamental Rights have been violated due to his arrest under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Interestingly the Complainant to the CID was also a Chief Inspector of the Police Narcotics Bureau who acted as a “whistle-blower” and complained against his colleagues who were thereafter arrested.
The Complainant Chief Inspector of the PNB, and the Police officers of the CID who investigated and arrested the suspect Narcotics officers are some of the key witnesses at a possible future High Court Trial.
According to the statement of the Complainant which was filed with the Limited Objections by the State, the suspect Narcotics Officers were actively taking part in transporting massive hauls of narcotics, even during the COVID curfew days, and there were clear implications of their complicity and connections to drug kingpins and the underworld, both here and abroad.
According to the same statement, the drug trade happening within the Police Narcotics Bureau came to light during the tenure of former Attorney General Dappula de Livera.
In his statement, the Complainant Inspector recounts that at a meeting called by the Attorney General on 23.06.2020, in which the Defence Secretary Major General Kamal Gunaratne, Acting IGP - Senior DIG C. D. Wickramaratne, DIG Ajith Rohana, Solicitor General Balapatabendi and other officials including several senior Intelligence officials of the Ministry of Defence were present, the Complainant Chief Inspector and his OIC were requested to state all the facts of the investigation. The Complainant Inspector had divulged all information revealed through his investigations upto 23.06.2020 to those present.
The Complainant Inspector had informed that according to his knowledge the corrupt officers were engaging in illegal activities such as stealing part of the narcotics confiscated and mixing the narcotics with other substances and keeping a part for themselves.
He had further informed that these suspect officers were roaming freely and taking steps to protect themselves, as action was not being taken against them despite sufficient information being available.
Senior State Counsel Wickrema informed Court that prior to the arrest by the CID, the suspected perpetrators seem to have been in the “care” of the Police Narcotics Bureau, and that there was no evidence that they were interrogated or investigated during that time. Proper investigations had commenced only after the CID took over.
Senior State Counsel Wickrema informed the Supreme Court, that the lives of the Complainant Chief Inspector and the lives of the investigating CID officers were in grave danger due to some of the suspect Police Narcotics Bureau officers being assigned to the Victims and Witness Protection Unit and the Organised Crimes Division of the Sri Lanka Police after they had been released on bail. SSC Wickrema also stated that some of the key informants of the case had already been murdered in public shootings.
Startlingly, the appointment of the suspect Police Narcotics Bureau officers to the Victims and Witness Protection Unit and Organised Crime Division took place soon after the appointment of Deshabandu Tennakoon as acting IGP.
When the Fundamental Rights case was called on the morning of 7 March, a junior appearing for Saliya Peiris, PC, Counsel for the Petitioner requested a postponement. SSC Wickrema informed the Court that the threat to the lives of the Complainant and CID Investigators is so grave, that they may not be alive on the next date. It was then that the 3-Judge Bench decided to take up the case that day itself and awaited the arrival of Peiris after attending to another case in the Supreme Court.
The Senior State Counsel brought to the attention of the Court that the contents of the statement of the Complainant had not been refuted by the Petitioner - suspect Narcotics officer, although the State had submitted all this material by way of Limited Objections. He also claimed that although PC Saliya Pieris had moved for time to answer by way of Counter Affidavit, the Counter Affidavit had not been submitted. The Senior State Counsel urged the Court to take note that the position of the State has thus been virtually admitted.
PC, Counsel for the Petitioner Saliya Pieris contended that the arrest had not been done properly and that the Petitioner had been improperly detained and that lawyers had not been allowed access to him. SSC Wickrema responded that all of this had been replied to by way of Limited Objections by his predecessor, and that the Petitioner had not countered the same.
He further stated that the Petitioner, being a Narcotics Officer, had not even named the Director of Police Narcotics Bureau properly by name, and not even named the DIG in charge of the PNB at that time. He stated that the truth of what had actually happened at the Police Narcotics Bureau could have been ascertained if those senior PNB officials had been named properly by the Petitioner - suspect and that the Petitioner had no excuse for not doing so since he himself was a PNB officer. He stated that the failure to name the senior Police Narcotics Bureau officers may have been done on purpose.
The Fundamental Rights case was being supported before the Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices Preethi Padman Surasena, A. H. M. D. Nawaz and Achala Wengappuli.
SSC Wickrema brought to the attention of the Court the then DIG of Police Narcotics Bureau was presently the Senior DIG of the Southern Range where most of these informants reside. Justice Surasena questioned SSC Wickrema on what the State would do regarding the lapses of public officials, to which the Senior State Counsel replied that immediately at the conclusion of the case, a letter would be sent out to the IGP.
After hearing the submissions made by both parties the Supreme Court refused Leave to Proceed on the Fundamental Rights application of the Petitioner - suspect Police Narcotics Bureau officer.
According to activists the proceedings bring to light the stark reality of drug trafficking in the country and the workings of the Police Narcotics Bureau, the very same entity entrusted with combating narcotics importation, use and trafficking in the country. The officers of the Police Narcotics Bureau are themselves the suspects, who after being enlarged on bail were allegedly reinstated to the same unit and thereafter assigned to the Victims and Witness Protection Unit and Organised Crimes Division under the regime of the present IGP. It is remarkable that so many officers of the PNB are suspects in the case.
The informants who come forward despite threats to their lives are allegedly murdered on the streets, with no protection from the Police. Those Police officers who were the “whistle-blowers” and investigators of the suspected narcotics officials were finally placed at the mercy of the very people they arrested, in a classic case of the “hunter becoming the hunted.”
Sri Lanka is still looking for a way out of this unstoppable drug menace growing like a cancer in our country. The thousands of cases filed by the Police and the Attorney General are alleged to have done little to prevent or curtail it. According to activists the ailing country and its citizens look forward to a debt free and drug free future. “Will this ever be possible with events such as those that were revealed in the Fundamental Rights case dismissed at the outset by their Lordships of the Supreme Court?” activists queried.
