Colombo Fort Magistrate Pasan Amarasena on Wednesday adjourned until 25 November the case against retired Major General Suresh Sallay, the former State Intelligence Service director being held and questioned by the CID over the Easter Sunday attacks investigation.
The magistrate also ordered the first and second suspects further remanded until 4 November, Hiru News reported at 3.32 p.m. Sallay and two other suspects appeared before the court by video link.
The orders followed submissions from the Criminal Investigation Department.
The request for eight officers
The substantive development was made by Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris, appearing for the Attorney General.
He told the court that when the verdict in the main Easter Sunday case was delivered by the three-judge High Court at Colombo, three of the defendants in that case said — in a remark rendered in Hiru’s Sinhala filing as “even though we have gone to jail, there are others connected to this” — and asked the court to appoint eight officers to investigate those statements.
The quotation above is a translation from Hiru’s Sinhala text and is not presented as the defendants’ verbatim English words.
That request matters more than the adjournment. It is an application to open a fresh investigative strand off the back of remarks made in open court by men already convicted, and it implies the prosecution regards the September judgment as having left participants unaccounted for.
The case this refers to
The main Easter case concluded in September, when the three-judge High Court found 15 defendants guilty and acquitted nine, then imposed sentences totalling 220 years and ordered property confiscated. Several of those convicted moved the Supreme Court against their sentences the following day.
Sallay’s own proceedings are separate. He was arrested by the CID in February and has been held under a detention order under the Prevention of Terrorism Act while the Easter investigation continues. He is the third suspect in the matter before the Fort Magistrate — which is why Wednesday’s remand order covers the first and second suspects but not him. A detention order and remand are different forms of custody, and the filing does not state whether his detention order has been extended again.
Last week he appeared in an unrelated matter, brought to the permanent three-judge High Court under CID guard as prosecution witness No. 90 in the Prageeth Ekneligoda case — a witness there, not an accused.
Not reported
Hiru’s filing does not name the two co-suspects, state what the CID told the court about investigative progress, or say whether the magistrate granted the application for eight officers — only that it was made. It does not report the status of Sallay’s detention order, whether any bail application was made, or what the next step is before 25 November. It gives no account of which three defendants made the remarks or at what point in the September proceedings.
On sourcing. This is a single-source report. The Daily Mirror’s breaking-news listing carried no item on Wednesday’s hearing at the time of writing, and searches of NewsFirst, the Daily FT, the Island and EconomyNext returned no filing on it. Ada Derana could not be checked: its site has returned a CloudFront block to this desk for more than a month.
On the name. This desk’s archive renders the surname Sallay; NewsFirst and some other outlets use Salley, and Hiru’s English URL spells it Saleh. All three refer to the same person. Hiru renders the Additional Solicitor General’s name as Dilip Peiris; the form used here, Dileepa Peiris, is the one carried in earlier reporting on this case.
The other business of the same hearing. Wednesday’s sitting also took up former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s motion seeking permission to travel abroad for medical treatment. The court rejected it on a date defect, and the same Additional Solicitor General told the bench that Rajapaksa has not been named a suspect in this investigation — reported separately in Court rejects Gotabaya’s travel motion over a date error. The two matters were disposed of at one calling; NewsFirst filed on the Gotabaya motion but not on the adjournment and remand orders recorded above, which is why the sourcing on the two reports differs.
Update, 21 October — a second newsroom files, and the hearing turns out to have covered far more
A second verified newsroom has filed on Wednesday’s hearing, confirming the adjournment to 25 November and the application for eight investigators. It also reports three substantial strands of the prosecution’s case that the first account did not mention at all, and the defence’s answer to one of them.
NewsFirst reported the same sitting, independently confirming the particulars recorded above: Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris sought permission for eight investigating officers to visit the prison and record statements from Milhan, Riskhan and Zainul Abdeen, and the case will be called again on 25 November.
It also supplies the dates Hiru omitted. The application was for statements to be recorded between 22 October and 8 November 2026 — a 17-day window beginning the day after the hearing.
And it gives the convicts’ remark in direct form. Peiris told the court the three had said in open court during the Trial-at-Bar judgment: “Although we have gone to prison, those connected to this are still outside.” He argued the statements must be investigated because the three made these remarks openly before court without fear.
The informant who identified Sarah Jasmine before the attacks
The most serious new allegation is that information identifying one of the Easter conspirators reached the army and was suppressed.
Peiris told the court that a military informant named Rajan supplied information to Corporal Suranga of the Sri Lanka Army. Corporal Suranga instructed Rajan to watch the residence of the uncle of Inshaf, one of the suicide bombers, and observe who visited.
Rajan entered the house and encountered a woman in a burqa, with a man. The woman spoke Tamil, but Rajan reported that her dialect was not local and appeared to be from the Batticaloa region. He noted her appearance.
After the attacks, when photographs of Sarah Jasmine appeared in the media, Rajan identified her as the woman he had seen and reported it to Corporal Suranga. Corporal Suranga told him not to concern himself with the matter and to forget about it.
Peiris’s submission to the court: “it is very clear that efforts were made to prevent information received after the attacks from being properly investigated, and that this occurred with the knowledge of Suresh Sallay.”
This is an allegation by the prosecution, put in open court. It is not a finding, and Sallay has not been convicted of anything.
The Douglas Devananda strand
Investigators have recorded a statement from former Minister Douglas Devananda, after information emerged that he introduced Asad Maulana — described as a key witness in the investigation — to both the Karuna faction and the Pillayan faction.
Peiris alleged Devananda directed a man named Shankar, who later served as Chairman of the Cashew Corporation, to arrange meetings between Asad Maulana, Karuna Amman and Pillayan. Devananda denies this.
A statement was then recorded from Shankar, who the Additional Solicitor General said was formerly head of Devananda’s political unit and who states that Devananda instructed him to make the introduction. Shankar left politics in 2005 and sought visas for his family to migrate to Switzerland.
Peiris also addressed the suggestion that Asad Maulana is making false statements involving Sallay and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, telling the court there would be no reason for him to do so, and that by 2005 and 2006 Maulana “was already receiving political protection.”
Peiris additionally complained to the court about Devananda’s conduct after giving his statement: he “held a media briefing and even referred to matters relating to the statement given to investigators. That should not happen. He is subject to the law.”
The Karuna Amman passport, and the defence’s answer
The court revisited the alleged issuing of travel documents to facilitate Karuna Amman’s departure from Sri Lanka.
Peiris alleged that two intelligence officers, including Sallay, arranged a diplomatic passport for Karuna Amman to travel to the United Kingdom, and that Sallay later travelled to meet him there — which Sallay denies. About two days after the alleged meeting, Karuna Amman was arrested and imprisoned in the UK for possessing a forged passport, before being deported to Sri Lanka. The passport had been obtained under another name. Peiris described Sallay as “a passport expert” who himself holds two or three passports.
The defence answered directly. President’s Counsel Shavindra Fernando, for Sallay, argued that if his client is alleged to hold multiple passports, the relevant passport numbers should be produced before court.
His substantive answer was an alibi of place: “At the time my client is alleged to have facilitated the issuing of a passport to Karuna Amman, he was serving at the Sri Lankan Embassy in France. Therefore, how could we have arranged a passport in Sri Lanka? These are entirely false allegations.”
Fernando also told the court that only one statement has so far been recorded from Sallay, and that it was not in relation to the Easter Sunday investigation — it concerned the passport allegedly linked to Karuna Amman.
What this changes about the hearing
The original report above described Wednesday’s sitting as an adjournment with one notable application attached. NewsFirst’s account shows it was a substantive hearing in which the prosecution set out three lines of inquiry and the defence responded on the record.
It also corrects the balance of the account. The first filing carried no defence position at all. Sallay’s counsel disputes the passport allegation on a specific, checkable ground — his client’s posting abroad at the material time — and that is now on the record alongside the allegations.
Still not reported
Neither filing says whether the magistrate granted the application for eight officers, only that it was made. Neither names the two co-suspects, reports the status of Sallay’s detention order, or says whether any bail application was made.
Neither gives the dates of Sallay’s posting to the Sri Lankan Embassy in France, which is the fact on which his alibi turns, or the date of the alleged Karuna Amman passport. Neither reports Corporal Suranga’s current status, whether he has been questioned, or whether Rajan has given a statement to the CID. Neither gives Shankar’s full name.
On sourcing. This report now rests on two verified newsrooms. They agree on the adjournment date, the Additional Solicitor General, the three named convicts and the eight officers. Everything in this update beyond those particulars comes from NewsFirst alone, and consists of submissions made in court by the prosecution and the defence — allegations and denials, not established facts.