Clarification from the Lanka News Web Chief Executive on the allegations leveled by the state media

Courtesy: Lanka News Web

(July 08, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Although I have no intention of responding to allegations leveled against me by the state media during the past weeks, I believe it is my duty and responsibility to clarify the details to the stunned readers of our website.

This is in relation to the headline news published on June 26 in the Daily News and Dinamina newspapers and feature stories published in the Rivira and The Sunday Times newspapers of June 27 about a case filed against me in the Colombo High Court (according to The Sunday Times report, the case had been filed against me on March 23, this year). The reports stated that the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) had taken steps to request for Interpol assistance to trace me as I had failed to appear in court when the case was taken up. The notice on me carried in the Interpol website and the warrant were also displayed in the stories.

When the notice first appeared about six weeks ago (one and a half months ago), I immediately informed my stance in writing to the Interpol and they informed me in writing the steps needed to be taken by me. My lawyers are currently following those guidelines.

I have not received any notice or summons from the Colombo High Court about the charges filed against me. Although the authorities are aware of my address in London, no steps were taken to send me any notice or summons to date to appear before court. Since it would not be fit to publish my defence to the charges in the warrant issued on me, in the public media, my lawyers will in future take the necessary legal steps to record my response before court.

Apart from the charges leveled against me before the High Court, I also take this opportunity to respond to the continuous fabricated allegations leveled against me by the state media. The worst allegations leveled against me are that I am the leader of the Sinhala Tiger group functioning in London and that the Tiger Organization had given millions of Sterling Pounds to operate the Lanka News Web website.

It is the key function of the state media to label any media personnel opposing the government, human rights activist and any politician who opposes the government, especially the former Army Commander as Tigers.

Given that the stance of the Lanka News Web editorial board is similar to the above mentioned activists, we would proudly accept any words used by those who cannot respect such stances.

We will consider it an honor. However, in relation to the allegation that the website had received monies from the Tiger organization, we would like to challenge those who have leveled such allegations against the website, to prove with details if we had accepted even one Sterling Pound from the organization.

I would also place before those who have accused me, as stated in the Dinamina newspaper, of acquiring a land belonging to another through a forged deed, arriving in the UK using forged travel documents and hiding in the UK as an illegal immigrant, to prove these allegations.

Note from the Editorial board:

Above is the clarification of the Chief Executive of our website to the malicious and false propaganda campaign being carried out by the government against him after identifying the Chief Executive and the Lanka News Web website as one entity. If our Chief Executive lived in close proximity to be physically hounded like Lasantha Wickrematunge and Dharmaratnam Sivaram, we will today be writing a different article. (However, we do not for a minute cast aside the fact that the government could even take the life of some one living overseas).

We did expect such bales allegations to be leveled against him at some point as he is the only public individual in a managerial post in the website. The legal principle of “Innocent until proven guilty,” applies to our Chief Executive as well.

We call upon our intelligent readers to understand the truth behind issuing a warrant on an individual through the Interpol for failing to appear before courts when there have been many warrants issued by courts on people who have smuggled out billions of rupees out of the country and live in the lap of luxury in foreign states.