A court has sentenced Sri Lanka’s former army chief to three years in prison for reportedly implicating the nation’s defense secretary in war crimes during the final stages of the country’s civil war.
A three-member High Court bench ruled Friday that Sarath Fonseka’s reported comments to a newspaper breached the country’s emergency law at the time.
Fonseka led Sri Lanka’s army to victory in its 25-year civil war with separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009. He unsuccessfully challenged President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the presidential election last year.
AP
The judgement was divided with Deepali Wijesundara who presided over the High Court Trial-at-bar and judge M.S Razeen finding him guilty for the first of the three counts and Judge W.T. M. P.B. Warawewa finding him not guilty for the three offences.
The first charge was:
1.Making a false statement to Frederica Sandra Kamela Jansz, the Editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, that the Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse had ordered Brigadier Shavindra Silva over the phone ‘not to let any of the LTTE leaders to surrender and to kill them all’ and thereby creating terror and panic.
The other charges were:
Arousing communal feelings directly or indirectly, by making the above statement and arousing anti-government feelings among the public and creasing disputes by making the above statement.
Mr. Fonseka in a dock statement said that he was being sentenced as his poliitcal opponents wanted to engage in politics while holding him in jail.
There was chaotic secenes outside the Courts when Mr. Fonseka was being taken away.
Prison guards were scene grabbing lawyers by their necks and pulling them away while at least two police vehicles were damaged.
Mrs Anoma Fonseka told the media "This government cannot compete with persons openly, but instead do underhand work".
A larger number of former soldiers, some of them disabled persons were present outside the Courts.
ST
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