Attorney General C.R. de Silva, PC tendered his retirement papers on Friday, a little over a month after his services were extended by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
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| Attorney General C. R. de Silva |
The sudden move came in the backdrop of a fundamental rights application before the Supreme Court where the President's right to extend the services of persons appointed by him, and beyond the age of sixty years, was being argued. The Attorney General's retirement is to come into effect on October 8.
Mr. de Silva served for 33 years in the Department, and was one of the leading State prosecutors for several years. He served as Solicitor General for many years before becoming the Attorney General.
Among some of the leading prosecutions he successfully appeared in were the Judge Ambepitiya murder case, the Rita John murder case, the Hokandara murder appeal, the Customs officer W. Amarapala murder appeal, the Kobegana beauty queen murder case, the G.C. Wickramasinghe abduction case, the Deputy Exams Commissioner Percy Nanayakkara forgery case, the Colombo Municipality electoral list case, the Sri Lanka Cricket Board cases, etc., He was the supervising counsel for hundreds of other prosecutions.
In more recent years he represented the State at the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva, and earlier this year, was involved in a major spat with the International Group of Eminent Persons where he defended the role of his Department in the inquiry into the deaths of civilians in strife-torn areas of the country.
In a special tribute paid to him, one of the country's leading criminal lawyer's Ranjit Abeysuriya, PC told a gathering of lawyers at a dinner felicitating him (Mr. Abeysuriya) on his 50 years at the Bar, that defence counsel "feared the presence of Mr. de Silva in a criminal trial, because we never know what is in store for us".
Mr. de Silva told The Sunday Times that he intended joining the private bar on his retirement.
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