The officer in charge of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has been ordered to appear in court in connection with an anticipatory bail application filed by a husband and wife team of educationists.
Chaminda Porage is the managing director of Elic International School, in Kelaniya, and his wife is the school principal. The hearing will come before Colombo Additional Magistrate Lal Bandara Ranasinghe on February 12.
Mr. Porage and his wife say the CID had plans to arrest the couple, along with their 12-year-old son, for non-bailable offences. The couple say the CID was attempting to intimidate Mr. Porage for his political commitments, which, he said, was his fundamental right.
During the election campaign for Presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka, Mr. Porage was working as a volunteer at General Fonseka’s main campaign office, at No. 1/3, Rajakeeya Mawatha, Colombo 7. Mr. Porage maintains that his volunteer work was in no way an illegal activity.
According to Mr. Porage’s application, on January 29, at about 2 pm, a team of CID officers, led by CID director Amerasinghe and ASP Senaka Kumarasinghe, raided General Fonseka’s Rajakeeya Mawatha campaign office. The CID officers, who were accompanied by a large number of Special Task Force (STF) personnel, had said they were searching for explosives.
Mr. and Mrs. Porage said the CID officers had found nothing incriminatory on the premises, but they removed several computers, including three laptops. All staff at the campaign office were present at the time.
Mr. Porage claims the CID had come to his residence and the Elic International School out of frustration at not being able to plant any incriminating evidence at General Sarath Fonseka’s campaign office.
In their application, Mr. Porage and his wife demand to know the whereabouts of the 13 persons who were arrested by the CID and taken away from General Fonseka’s office. |
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