One such case was the murder of journalist Richard de Zoysa. Police
suspected as de Zoysa had friends among the JVP students at Colombo
University, the movement’s urban base. On the night of Feb.18, 1990,
Ronnie Gunasinghe, a senior superintendent for police and a confidant
of Premadasa, was having drinks with Deputy Defence Minister Ranjan
Wijeratne. At one point, says a senior police officer, Wijeratne
called Premadasa and told him of a plan to pick up the journalist
[neither tea planter Wijeratne nor policeman Ronnie Gunasinghe had
served like Dayan Jayatilleka as an infiltrator of the Left]. The next
day de Zoysa’s tortured body was found floating off a beach south of
Colombo. Wijeratne was killed in a car bomb explosion in March 1991.
Gunasinghe died with Premadasa in the explosion last week.
suspected as de Zoysa had friends among the JVP students at Colombo
University, the movement’s urban base. On the night of Feb.18, 1990,
Ronnie Gunasinghe, a senior superintendent for police and a confidant
of Premadasa, was having drinks with Deputy Defence Minister Ranjan
Wijeratne. At one point, says a senior police officer, Wijeratne
called Premadasa and told him of a plan to pick up the journalist
[neither tea planter Wijeratne nor policeman Ronnie Gunasinghe had
served like Dayan Jayatilleka as an infiltrator of the Left]. The next
day de Zoysa’s tortured body was found floating off a beach south of
Colombo. Wijeratne was killed in a car bomb explosion in March 1991.
Gunasinghe died with Premadasa in the explosion last week.
