Columns

• Finds him guilty of majority of charges in the charge-sheet; exposes his unlawful role in orchestrating the Weligama shooting incident
• Resolution to remove him before Parliament on August 5; the controversial police chief may go into history as the first to be ejected by MPs
• Easter Sunday attacks continue to stir controversies; Church in the centre of a storm; SJB MP calls on deputy defence minister to resign

By our Political Desk

Sri Lanka’s 36th Inspector General of Police (IGP), T.M.W. Deshabandu Tennakoon, is set to become the country’s first-ever holder of that post to be ejected from office by Parliament when the House debates a resolution to remove him on August 5. The move comes after a three-member committee appointed to probe allegations of misconduct and gross abuse of power against IGP Tennakoon found him guilty of 19 of the 23 charges laid against him.

The committee was appointed in terms of Section 5 of the Removal of Officers (Procedure) Act, No. 5 of 2002, after a resolution signed by 115 MPs of the ruling National People’s Power (NPP) was passed unanimously in Parliament on April 8. The committee headed by Supreme Court Justice Preethi Padman Surasena—and also including the Chairman of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), Justice W. M. N. P. Iddawala, and the Chairman of the National Police Commission, Lalith Ekanayake—met for the first time on April 23 in Parliament. Upon a request made by the committee, the Attorney General nominated Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris, PC, and Deputy Solicitor General Rajitha Perera to assist the inquiry. It was also given a team of investigators from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) led by an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) to assist in the probe. Thereafter, the committee began hearing of evidence from May 19, when Mr. Tennakoon first appeared before it and was served the charge sheet consisting of the 23 charges against him.

The Weligama crime scene where an unlawful police operation led to the death of a police officer

Deshabandu Tennakoon

Charges 1 to 16 were related to the now infamous shooting outside the W15 hotel at Pelena in Weligama on December 31, 2023. It left an officer from the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) dead. Charges 17 to 19 accused Mr. Tennakoon of going into hiding from February 27, 2025, to March 19, 2025, disobeying the orders made by the Matara Magistrate’s Court to arrest him in connection with the shooting outside the W15 hotel. Charges 20 and 21 accused Mr. Tennakoon, in his capacity as the then Senior Deputy Inspector General (SDIG) of Police of the Western Province, of failing or omitting to act to prevent the attack on peaceful protesters at Galle Face on May 9, 2022, while charges 22 and 23 accused him of bringing disrepute to the office of the IGP and the Police Department by committing one or more of the aforesaid acts of misconduct and/or acts of gross abuse of power.

The Committee heard oral evidence from 31 witnesses in support of the charge sheet during the course of its inquiry. Mr. Tennakoon had originally submitted a list of 15 witnesses to give evidence on behalf of him, but only seven subsequently gave oral evidence before the Committee.

How the “unlawful mission” to shoot up W15 hotel unfolded

In arriving at its conclusions on charges 1-10 and 13-16 on the charge sheet, the committee has decided that the sequence of events that led to the Weligama shooting on December 31, 2023, between 2:20 am and 2:30 am, had occurred in the way narrated by the CCD’s then Officer-in-Charge, Chief Inspector (CI) Anslem de Silva, before the committee, as his evidence had been corroborated by many other witnesses. At the time of the incident, Deshabandu Tennakoon had functioned as the Senior Inspector General of Police (SDIG) in charge of the Western Province and was also the Acting IGP.

It had been established before the Committee that on December 29, 2023, the Respondent IGP had given verbal instructions to the then Acting Director of the CCD, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Neville de Silva (now retired), to send teams to Weligama to arrest those who were on a list of 149 suspected associates of alleged organised criminal and drug trafficker Nadun Chinthaka Wickramaratne, alias ‘Harak Kata.’ A CCD team, which had been dispatched to Weligama the following day, had arrested 11 of the suspects and brought them back to Colombo. ASP Neville de Silva, however, had then given what the committee noted was “an illegal order” in his office to another CCD team led by CI Anslem de Silva on the morning of December 30, 2023, to go to Weligama in the night and open fire at the W15 Hotel at Pelena.

In his evidence before the committee, CI Anslem de Silva, who is under interdiction, testified that he had been given specific instructions by ASP Neville de Silva to take his team to Weligama and open fire at the W15 hotel to frighten persons who were involved in parties with narcotic substances. ASP de Silva had told them that steps had been taken to keep police authorities in Matara informed about this operation.

A team of eight CCD officers led by CI Anslem de Silva and including Inspector of Police (IP) Mahesh Dunusinghe, IP Jagath Nishantha and Sub Inspector (SI) Roshan Maduranga had then travelled to Weligama in a white KDH van belonging to the CCD bearing registration number WP PK 7225. The van’s appearance had been changed before it left the CCD office to make it appear different from outside. This had been done by Police Driver Constable Dulip Gihan Piyatissa, who drove the van. He pasted a sticker on the body of the vehicle. According to evidence given by CI Anslem de Silva, SI Maduranga had been seated next to the rear side door on the left, carrying a T56 assault rifle. Police Sergeant Upul Chaminda Kumara, who was killed in the incident, also carried a T56 weapon. CI de Silva and IP Nishantha had carried pistols. The number plates of the van had also been swapped out for false number plates when the CCD team had briefly stopped at CI de Silva’s residence in Mount Lavinia. All of the team members had worn civil clothes. The committee has observed that CI de Silva had made an entry of his departure in the Information Book of Unit 01 of the CCD to reflect that he was leaving with the team to the Matara area for an investigation “while knowing very well that he was going to open fire at the W15 hotel, which is an unlawful act.”

After making their way to Weligama along the Southern Highway, the team had located the W15 hotel. As they had been instructed to commit an illegal act, the team had parked the van at a nearby place and waited till late for the vehicle flow on the road to ease. At about 2.20am on December 31, 2023, they had parked the van in front of the W15 hotel to execute their “unlawful mission.”

According to CI Anslem de Silva, SI Maduranga, who had volunteered to open fire at the hotel, had fired about 8-10 rounds with his T56 towards the hotel. The committee has noted that CI de Silva has made it clear that there was nobody in the vicinity who had fired at them before SI Maduranga opened fire at the hotel. Thus, it is CI Anslem de Silva’s “clear position that Maduranga opened fire at the W15 hotel at this moment deliberately without any justification,” the committee has stressed.

CCD team encounters night mobile patrol of Weligama Police

At this moment, however, the CCD team ran into a completely unexpected development when they encountered the night mobile patrol jeep of the Weligama Police. The team was a combined police and army night mobile patrol under the command of Police Sergeant Ajith Sisira Kumara. In his evidence before the committee, Sergeant Sisira Kumara testified that they had seen the white KDH van when they were approaching the W15 Hotel and had heard sounds similar to bursting firecrackers. They had then slowly overtaken the van from the right side and observed a person firing at the hotel through the opened left rear door. Sergeant Sisira Kumara had ordered the police jeep’s driver to stop their vehicle, and he had accordingly stopped the vehicle approximately 5-7 metres ahead of the parked KDH van. The sergeant had then got off the jeep and had been walking towards the van when it started speeding off and overtaking the police jeep, at which point he ordered his team to open fire at the vehicle. Accordingly, Army Sergeant Chandimal Ruchiranga, who was part of the night mobile patrol, had fired at the fleeing van with his T56 weapon.

CI Anslem de Silva had told the CoI that Police Sergeant Upul and SI Maduranga received gunshot wounds when those in the night mobile patrol jeep fired at the CCD van. He had noted that it was then that he realised that Acting CCD Director Neville de Silva had told them a lie to mislead them that the area police authorities had been kept informed of their operation. The unexpected incident of having come under fire had left all in the CCD van “confused, frightened and shocked.” They had then contacted ASP Neville de Silva but had not received any clear instruction on what they should do next. After stopping on a by-road and changing the van’s fake number plates to real ones, the team had made their way to Imaduwa Highway Entrance with the aim of going to Karapitiya Hospital while concealing the injured persons in the van. However, police officers at the Imaduwa Highway Entrance had prevented them from proceeding further. After some time, the Weligama Headquarters Inspector (HQI) had come to the Imaduwa Highway Entrance and taken steps to dispatch the two injured officers to the hospital, where Sergeant Upul succumbed to his injuries. The other officers in the van had been taken to the Weligama police station.

Fabricated story of shooting by third party

CI de Silva had stated in his evidence that at no time did the Respondent IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon ever speak to him to ascertain what had happened after the incident of the shooting. It was ASP Neville de Silva who had come to the Weligama police station between 5.30am and 6.00am on December 31, 2023. After discussing the matter with the CCD team, ASP de Silva had instructed the team members to give statements to Weligama police fabricating the story that they had returned fire when they were fired upon by an unknown third party in front of the W15 hotel. The CCD team had accordingly given the fabricated story in their statements to the Weligama police. The same fabricated story was also narrated by the CCD members when giving evidence recorded in the inquest conducted before the Matara Magistrate. In March 2025, however, CI Anslem de Silva and other members of the team that went to Weligama volunteered to divulge the true story to the CID.

CI de Silva had also noted before the committee that the basis mentioned in the reward voucher of Rs. 1.5 million granted to Sergeant Upul, who was killed in the incident, where it is mentioned that he was killed by firing attributed to unidentified gunmen suspected to be engaged in the heroin business with W. Chinthaka, alias ‘Harak Kata,’ is clearly a fabricated and false claim.

The witness had also identified documents prepared after the shooting incident to falsely show that permission by superior officers had been granted to the CCD team to travel to Weligama on December 30, 2023. While Acting CCD Director Neville de Silva had asked the team to undertake the firing of the W15 Hotel only on December 30, the documents had falsely noted that it was on December 29, 2023, that all the superior officers, i.e., ASP, DIG, and SDIG (Respondent IGP Tennakoon), had granted the team permission to travel to Weligama on December 30. Moreover, CI Anslem de Silva had admitted that at the time they left the CCD premises at 8.30pm on December 30, they did not have written permission from any superior officer to undertake such travel. The committee observes that this indicates that the filled and approved Police Form 439 (used for official approvals and records) and the covering letters by the ASP, DIG and SDIG (Respondent IGP) were “non-existent documents as at 29-12-2023.”

The committee had also recorded that ASP Neville de Silva had sought the assistance of DIG Nishantha de Zoysa, who was the Director of Police Special Branch, the main intelligence arm of the police, to contact IGP Tennakoon when the former could not get through to the Respondent IGP to inform him of the shooting incident. DIG de Zoysa had been successful in contacting Mr. Tennakoon and breaking the news to him. Mr. Tennakoon’s response to DIG de Zoysa, along with other facts, had established before the committee that the Respondent IGP “was never surprised that ASP Neville de Silva had sent this team.”

IGP Tennakoon’s involvement

ASP Neville de Silva knew well at that time that the CCD team got shot when they were on an illegal mission. Yet, the evidence shows that he had taken an unwavering effort to somehow bring all these unlawful acts to the notice of the Police Chief (the Respondent IGP) without any hesitation and as soon as possible, the report points out. “Indeed, at no time up until now has the Respondent IGP found fault with, or criticised, or taken any action against ASP Neville de Silva’s action of sending CI Anslem de Silva’s team to Weligama for this illegal mission. To the contrary, the Respondent IGP still defends the CCD team, ASP Neville de Silva and all those who had assisted to cover up this incident. This is not consistent with any hypothesis of innocence on the part of the Respondent IGP but a clear indication of his complicity in the shooting incident undertaken by the CCD team.”

It has also been established before the committee that it was the Respondent IGP who had directed ASP Neville de Silva to immediately proceed to Weligama and that he had followed developments through the ASP, who had functioned as his “agent.” However much the Respondent IGP sought to insist that the Weligama police station had conducted an investigation under the direction of SSP Matara, what they had done was quite the opposite, the committee notes. “By that time the Respondent IGP’s agent, ASP Neville de Silva, was hand in hand with HQI Weligama. Is this not a clear indication of the Respondent IGP’s interference in the investigations? If so, does it not indicate any complicity of the Respondent IGP in the shooting incident by CCD members? These facts are not consistent with any hypothesis of innocence on the part of the Respondent IGP.”

The committee further points out that it was IGP Tennakoon who was instrumental in granting a promotion and awarding a reward to Police Sergeant (PS) Upul, who was killed in this shooting incident, within two days from the incident. The committee observes that IGP Tennakoon was “in a mighty hurry” to ensure a promotion and approve a reward to PS Upul. The process is now found to be illegal by any yardstick, it stresses. “In the light of those factors, the only irresistible inference beyond reasonable doubt which the Committee of Inquiry can draw is the fact that ASP Neville de Silva’s action of sending CI Anslem de Silva’s team to Weligama to execute an illegal mission has been done at the instance of the Respondent IGP. On the evidence led, and on the factual positions proved, it is the only irresistible inference this Committee can draw, and it is drawn to the exclusion of any other hypothesis of innocence of the Respondent IGP. In other words, the inferences which this Committee of Inquiry has drawn are not consistent with any hypothesis of innocence of the Respondent IGP.”

Indeed, if PS Upul were alive, he should now have stood as a suspect in the Matara Magistrate’s court case, the CoI adds. This is particularly so, as all members of the CCD team led by CI Anslem de Silva, without exception, now stand as suspects in that case. It adds that IGP Tennakoon has also deliberately not taken any action against anyone, even when the National Police Commission inquired from him about the W15 Hotel incident, referring to an article published in one of the national newspapers. The Respondent IGP’s reply to the National Police Commission was that the CCD officers had not committed any wrong. This was almost two months after the incident.

Committee’s conclusions

Given these reasons, the committee has concluded that it was Mr. Tennakoon as the Respondent IGP who had spearheaded the “questionable, illegal act of shooting undertaken by CI Anslem de Silva’s team on 31-12-2023 between 2.20 am and 2.30 am through ASP Neville de Silva.” Therefore, the Committee of Inquiry has found Mr. Tennakoon guilty of Charge Nos. 1, 2, 3, 9, and 10 and Charge Nos. 13, 14, 15, and 16 in the charge sheet.

The committee has found the IGP not guilty of Charges 11 and 12—charges that accused him of instructing the CCD members to surreptitiously return to Colombo without admitting the two injured CCD members to hospital—concluding there is no evidence to establish this. The committee has taken the view that the reasonable inference it can draw is that, in the absence of any clear further instruction from ASP Neville de Silva, who had been unable to reach Mr. Tennakoon at the time, the CCD team on its own had decided to find its way to the nearby highway entrance to go to Karapitiya Hospital, concealing the injured persons in the van.

Charge Numbers 17, 18 and 19 in the charge sheet are based on the allegation that Mr. Tennakoon, as IGP, went into hiding by disobeying the orders made by the Matara Magistrate to arrest him over the shooting outside the W15 Hotel. The committee has accepted the evidence of the CID officers who attempted to locate and arrest IGP Tennakoon, finding him guilty of all three charges.

The committee has made no finding with regard to Charges 20 and 21, which relate to Mr. Tennakoon’s conduct during the incident at Galle Face on May 9, 2022, thinking it not fit to proceed on those charges given that the Court of Appeal had issued a writ of prohibition naming him as a suspect in the incident.

Charges 22 and 23 have been presented on the basis that the Respondent IGP, by committing one or more of the acts of misconduct and/or acts of gross abuse of power more fully set out in the other charges, has brought Sri Lanka Police into disrepute and thereby committed an act unbecoming of the Inspector General of Police of the country.

The committee has found him guilty of both charges, noting that it has already concluded that CI Anslem de Silva’s team went to Weligama to open fire at the W15 Hotel at the instance of the Respondent IGP. “Nobody could ever even dream that the Inspector General of Police of the country would facilitate that kind of dangerous, illegal act, namely: the act of firing at a private hotel with a T56 weapon belonging to Sri Lanka Police; the act of using a van belonging to Sri Lanka Police for that purpose; the act of employing officers of Sri Lanka Police over whom he exercised command authority to engage in that illegal act of firing; and the act of damaging the said private hotel property of an undefended citizen and frightening him. Citizens of any country would not want an Inspector General in their Police with that kind of conduct. This is in addition to the Respondent IGP’s subsequent acts of going into hiding in the face of an order by the Magistrate’s Court of Matara for his arrest,” the committee concludes.

With the committee unanimously finding Mr. Tennakoon guilty of the vast majority of charges made against him, the resolution to remove him from the office of the IGP in terms of Section 17 of the Removal of Officers (Procedure) Act, No. 5 of 2002, has now been placed in the order book of Parliament. It will be debated on August 5 from 11.30am to 4.00pm, with a vote scheduled to be taken at 4.00pm. If the majority of MPs (including those absent) vote in favour of the resolution, in terms of Section 18 of the said Act, the President will be notified to immediately remove him from the office of IGP.

Easter Day terrorist attacks continue
to stir controversy

In other news, the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks investigation, which has become a political football, continues to be a topic of debate and generate controversy, both for the government and the Catholic Church. The past few days have seen more comments and denials on matters related to the attacks.

First there was the slip of the tongue of sorts by House Leader and Minister Bimal Rathnayake two weeks ago in Parliament. He said that the reinstatement of retired Senior Superintendent of Police Shani Abeysekera—now Director, Criminal Investigation Department (CID)—to the Police Department as well as bringing back retired Senior Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Ravi Seneviratne as the Secretary to the Public Security was at the behest of the Catholic Church.

After the comments went public, it caused an uproar, and questions were raised if government appointments were dictated by the Church. The Catholic Church denied that any such request was made to reinstate these officials. However, the request had been to bring back the team that initially investigated the Easter Day attacks, and hence this may have been the reason they were brought in.

Once the dust settled on that, there was another controversial comment by Director of National Catholic Mass Communications Rev. Fr. Jude Krishantha after the National Police Commission (NPC) decided last week to terminate the services of former Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (SDIG) Nilantha Jayawardena, on grounds he ignored intelligence reports pertaining to the attacks and hence failed to prevent the tragedy.

In a Sunday address, Fr. Jude Krishantha, while calling for the harshest possible punishment for those convicted of direct or indirect involvement in the Easter Sunday bombings on 21 April 2019, said that in his opinion, even a life sentence is not enough. ”For a crime of this magnitude, the death penalty is what justice demands,” he said.

That led to more denials by the Catholic Church with the Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Colombo, Fr. Cyril Gamini Fernando, stepping in to distance the Church from Fr. Jude Krishantha’s remark that former SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena should face the death penalty.

“Fr. Jude has informed us that his comments were a personal opinion expressed during a Sunday address. He has since expressed his regret over the statement,” Fr. Fernando said at a hurriedly called media briefing on Monday at the Archbishop’s House in Colombo.

The denials have not made the issue go away, with a group calling itself the Nawa Janatha Peramuna handing over a letter of protest to the Colombo-based Papal Nuncio (the diplomatic representative of the Vatican) saying that the death penalty goes against all religious teachings. It’s unlikely this will be the last of such controversies related to the investigation, given the Catholic Church’s persistent public comments on the ongoing investigation and what it sees as a lack of progress in the direction it thinks the investigation should proceed.

For the government, too, which came to power with pledges to ‘uncover the truth’ behind the attacks, it has become a bit like taking the tiger by the tail. On one hand, Colombo’s Archbishop, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, who at one time expressed confidence in the country’s new leadership to deliver on their promises, now seems resigned to the fact that he may have placed too much faith in politicians, while the main opposition, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), too, has been raising some uncomfortable questions regarding the attacks.

On Friday, SJB’s Chaminda Wijesiri raised a question in Parliament regarding the details of the number of officers accused by various commissions appointed to look into the Easter attacks of not performing their duty and responsibility and asked for the disclosure of such names.

Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya responded, saying investigations were ongoing, and hence divulging such details would compromise the investigation, but none who were negligent in their duties would go unpunished.

That did not satisfy the Opposition MPs, several of whom alleged that the Deputy Minister of Defence, Anura Jayasekera, who was the Commanding Officer of the East during the time of the attacks, was privy to information of growing violence in the area but had been negligent in his duties too.

SJB Colombo District Parliamentarian Mujibur Rahman said that unless Mr. Jayasekera was removed from the position he holds, it’s unlikely a fair investigation would take place, but the Prime Minister responded, saying there was no need for him to resign or be removed from the position to ensure a free and fair investigation.

The government has previously had to answer questions with regard to the father of two suicide bombers in the Easter Sunday attacks, Mohamed Ibrahim, being included in the JVP National List in 2015. On this, the JVP has said that his name was added to the national list of the JVP in 2015, as he was a party supporter, but since the Easter Sunday attacks, there has been no contact with the man.

So, while the government will try and keep appeasing the Cardinal, whose support was vital during the last presidential and parliamentary elections, how successful it will be in finding the elusive smoking gun that points to a definitive political link to the attack should be known in the months ahead.

President off to the Maldives

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will undertake a two-day state visit to the Maldives tomorrow at the invitation of President Mohamed Muizzu.

During the visit, President Dissanayake is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with President Muizzu and exchange several memoranda of understanding to deepen mutual cooperation.

The visit comes as the two countries commemorate this year the 60th anniversary of the establishment of formal diplomatic relations.

This is President Dissanayake’s sixth overseas visit since taking office in September last year. He visited Germany in June and Vietnam in May. Other visits have been to India, China and the UAE.