SRI LANKA: Second assault and serious threats made by police informer attached to the Mirihane Police 

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission has come to learn of a second assault instituted by a man who is a police informer attached to the Mirihane Police. In both incidents the alleged perpetrator threatened the victims that they too would suffer the same fate as Gerald Perera. That this man believes it is acceptable for him to assault others and threaten them is intolerable. That the police are not taking action to prevent him from doing this again is a matter for urgent intervention by government authorities.

Jenny Violet, a 53 year-old married woman was physically dragged out of her premises by the hair on 25 June 2006 by Jayasantha, a police informer attached to Mirihane Police Station. She was then taken to another house where she was assaulted severely.  She was admitted to the Base Hospital at Gampaha at around 7:30pm on the same day and is still receiving treatment for her injuries.

While assaulting Ms. Violet the perpetrator stated, “that the same thing that was done to Gerald Mervyn will be done to you”. This is a reference to the late Gerald Perera who also lived in the same neighbourhood and who was assassinated while waiting to give evidence in a torture case against several police officers.

According to information given to the investigating officers regarding the assassination, this same Jayasantha was identified as the person who befriended Gerald Perera and who took Gerald in his own vehicle to the bus in which he was shot.  The bus in which Gerald traveled was followed by a car in which the assassin traveled.  This car overtook the bus allowing the assassin to board the bus and subsequently to shoot Gerald.  The suspicion is that after getting Gerald into the bus Jayasantha passed the information to the driver of the car in which the assassin traveled.  Despite this being reported to the inquiring officers Jayasantha was never arrested or produced as a suspect in the murder case of Gerald Perera.

On June 16 the AHRC also reported another assault by this same Jayasantha on D.M. Chandrani Dissanayake, the wife of A.P. Nimal, who also lives in the same neighbourhood (please refer to: UA-193-2006).

Though complaints have been made regarding the attacks on both Jenny Violet and Chandrani Dissanayake no investigations have been conducted by the police.  The two families believe that the police are protecting this police informer who also has the protection of some other police officers due to his alleged involvement in Gerald Perera’s case which has received wide publicity in the country as well as internationally.  The two families of the victims feel that the criminal actions of Jayasantha will not be properly investigated or prosecuted.  Besides this, Jayasantha himself has been claiming that he gets the protection of the police officers.

These two neighbouring families fear that Jayasantha will attack them again and may do harm to the husbands of the two women also as these men have made complaints to the police regarding the assaults.  It is also feared that the family of Gerald Perera, which is also residing in the same neighbourhood, may also be further harassed or come to more serious harm by Jayasantha.

Everyone in the neighbourhood, particularly the two families mentioned above and that of Gerald Perera request a serious inquiry into the matter and also criminal action to be instituted against Jayasantha.  The neighbours also seek protection against any further criminal actions by him.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

Please write a letter to the authorities strongly condemning the actions of the alleged perpetrator. Action must be taken at once before any more threats are made or any further actions are taken of a far more serious nature.

Automated email letters can be sent by the AHRC Urgent Appeals on-line support system. To support this appeal please refer to http://www.ahrchk.net/support.php?ua=UA-208-2006. For those contacts without an email address, we ask that you still write a letter and post or fax this. If you have any problems or questions using this system, please feel free to contact us at ua@ahrchk.org.

 

 

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