News
Easter Sunday attacks: Defence counsel withdraw from Trial-at-Bar case
View(s):By S. Rubatheesan
Counsel representing all 24 accused in the Trial-at-Bar into the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks have decided to withdraw from cases due to difficulties they face in view of the expeditious nature of trial proceedings.
On January 22, four lawyers – Attorneys K. S. Ratnavale, H. Ghazali Hussain, Rushdhie Habeeb and Niranjan Siriwardena, who collectively represent 24 indicted suspects – filed a motion informing the Bench that they would refrain from representing the accused, citing various reasons such as limited access to their clients and difficulties in obtaining clear, detailed instructions from them due to time constraints.
The Trial-at-Bar was constituted after the Attorney General filed indictments against 24 persons who are alleged to have committed 23,269 offences. Some 23,000 pages of indictment documents were translated into Tamil and Sinhala and have been placed before the court.
The AG has also listed 184 items of evidence, including 76 swords, a couple of batteries, detonators, etc. At least 2190 persons are listed as official witnesses, with Dr Rohan Gunaratne, former Director General of the Institute of National Security Studies, and Maj Gen (Rtd) Suresh Salley, former Chief of the State Intelligence Service (SIS), named as first and second witnesses, respectively.
Daily proceedings which begin at 9.30am and continue till 4.30pm at the one-time official residence of a former state minister on Bullers Lane, Colombo 07, have also posed administrative challenges for the counsel to prepare for the proceedings while ensuring their professional commitments to appear in other cases, the Sunday Times learns.
The counsel had earlier requested the Trial-at-Bar, comprising High Court Judges Nawaratne Marasinghe (President), Sujeewa Nissanka and Ramanathan Kannan, to conduct hearings three days of the week instead of every weekday. The request, however, was denied.
In their motion filed in court, the counsel had pointed out that the accused pleaded not guilty and had been in continuous remand custody for over six years at various prisons, and “it has become extremely difficult for counsel to have proper consultations and obtain specific instructions vis-à-vis the conduct of the trial.”
The counsel have noted that, given such circumstances, they “have no other alternative but, in the interests of justice and with a view to upholding the right to proper and adequate representation of the accused, have decided to withdraw from appearing in the said matters so that their clients could retain counsel of their choice, who would be available to conduct their trial day and ensure the constitutional right to a fair trial.”
In the aftermath of the collective withdrawal of the counsel, the accused have been given three options by the court – retain other lawyers, accept assigned counsel from the court or conduct their own cases during the proceedings. They have been instructed to convey their decision to court tomorrow (2). Additional Solicitor Generals Haripriya Jayasundara and Sudharshana de Silva and State Counsel Crisanga Fernando, Shakthi Jagodaarachchi, Akila Dalpadadu and Sajith Bandara appeared for the prosecution.
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