The Attorney General’s Department has told the Court of Appeal that former State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director Major General (Retd.) Suresh Sallay obstructed the Easter Sunday investigation by giving false information and by preventing investigators from obtaining material.
Deputy Solicitor General Suharshi Herath made the submissions on Tuesday as 12 intervening petitions filed in connection with Sallay’s writ application were taken up, NewsFirst reported. Sallay is challenging the legality of his arrest and detention under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
This is the first detailed account of the State’s case against the petition, and it lands the same day a fresh 90-day detention order was issued against him.
The passport that was handed over — and produced anyway
In a translated excerpt published by NewsFirst, the Deputy Solicitor General said Sallay told the CID he had handed his diplomatic passport to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after completing duties at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Malaysia, yet had filed a certified copy of that same passport in court.
“If the passport had indeed been handed over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, how was he able to submit a certified copy of it to court?” she asked. She said a passport runs to 64 pages but only selected pages of the diplomatic passport had been produced, and only four pages of his official passport.
Sallay has stated he left for India on 3 January 2019 for a defence training programme and returned only that December — placing him out of the country in the months before the April 2019 bombings. The passport pages go to that account.
Herath also said investigators asked for the passwords to Sallay’s mobile phone and computer and that he declined to provide them, forcing them to obtain court orders to access the devices. Hiru News reported her account more precisely: he gave four different incorrect passwords, which is what compelled the CID to seek an order from the Fort Magistrate.
The State wants the interventions thrown out
Herath argued the intervening petitions have no valid legal basis, saying they merely repeat arguments already in the main petition and that the case turns on the petitioner’s personal liberty rather than a public interest question. The appropriate remedy for an unlawful arrest, she submitted, would be a fundamental rights petition before the Supreme Court, not writ relief in the Court of Appeal. She asked the court to dismiss the petitions without granting leave.
NewsFirst named the intervening parties as Ven. Bengamuwe Nalaka Thera, Ven. Ahungalle Siri Gunananda Thera, Ven. Yapanaye Sugatha Wansa Thera, Ven. Medagoda Abhayatissa Thera, Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekara, Dr. Wasantha Bandara and the National Patriotic Movement, and reported the Deputy Solicitor General as describing them as filed in support of Sallay.
That characterisation does not fit them all. Ada Derana lists Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith among the intervening parties, and the Cardinal’s July intervention sought the dismissal of Sallay’s petition, not its support. Neither of those two reports addresses the difference.
Hiru News resolves it: Herath told the court that every intervening petition except the one filed by the Archbishop asked it to grant the relief Sallay was seeking. Hiru put the number of interventions at 13, not 12, and said roughly 80% of the intervening petitioners were Buddhist monks invoking Article 9 of the Constitution and framing the case as public interest litigation — the ground the Deputy Solicitor General went on to dispute.
The State also defended the CID director
Hiru reported a further limb of the state’s case that the other two outlets did not carry: a direct rebuttal of claims that CID Director Shani Abeysekara acted maliciously in pursuing Sallay.
Herath said the investigation was handed to the CID on the Inspector General’s orders during the tenure of former CID Director Mangala Dehideniya, before Abeysekara took up the post, and that Senior Superintendent Himesha Muthumala had obtained the travel ban on Sallay while heading the division — both, she argued, showing the inquiry was already running before Abeysekara arrived. She also said the Janak de Silva Commission, while recommending disciplinary action against several police officers, did not name Abeysekara anywhere in those recommendations.
The same allegation of malice was aired publicly a day later, when the Patriotic National Movement claimed false information had been used to extend the detention. NewsFirst’s list of intervening parties includes the movement itself, rendered as the National Patriotic Movement.
Hiru rendered the Deputy Solicitor General’s name “Suharshe Herath”; NewsFirst and Ada Derana give “Suharshi”.
Two hearing dates, and a conflict largely resolved
The case now has two forward dates, and a discrepancy between the outlets that Hiru’s fuller account mostly settles.
NewsFirst reported that the Court of Appeal will rule on September 7 on whether leave will be granted to proceed with the intervening petitions. Ada Derana reported that the court will announce on October 7 whether notices should be issued on them. The bench in both accounts is Court of Appeal President Justice Rohantha Abeysuriya and Justice Priyantha Fernando.
Hiru News gives both limbs. It reports that the order on whether to issue notice on the intervening petitions will be delivered on 7 October, matching Ada Derana, and that further consideration of Sallay’s main petition was fixed for 3 September.
That gives two of the three outlets the same October date for the intervening-petition question, and supplies a separate early-September date for the main petition that neither of the other two reported. NewsFirst’s September 7 matches neither figure exactly.
Sallay has not been charged. The allegations against him remain under investigation and untested at trial.
