Mandana says ‘gold haul’ found by police does not belong to her

By Madura Ranwala-August 28, 2013,

The Sunday Leader Associate Editor, Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema, has said that the gold jewellery the police claim to have recovered from the men who broke into her house does not belong to her.

Police said the jewellery (12 bangles, 14 chains, two bracelets, ten pendants, ten rings and nine ear rings) had been recovered from the robbers who broke into Abeywickrema’s residence on August 24. 

Police spokesman SP Buddhika Siriwardana yesterday told The Island that the police investigations had revealed that the jewellery belonged to Abeywickrema’s mother.

However, when contacted, Mandana said the intruders had robbed only two ear rings, two rings and a short chain belonging to her. She denied the police claim that the jewellery belonged to her mother.

Mandana said, "I don’t think my mother would have had such an amount of gold jewellery in her possession. I have not gone to that house in Bambalapitiya since the incident."

She could identify the intruders who told her that they had come on a contract as their masks had dropped from time to time while the lights were on, Abeywirckrema said, stressing that the motive for the break-in was not clear as there had been two previous attempts to intimidate her and her family. "Last Thursday morning, there was a dead cat near our house and on Friday morning, we found the tyres of my husband’s car slashed and then in the early hours of Saturday, the intruders held me at knifepoint saying they wanted to carry out a contract and half of the loot had to be given to the person who hired them." 

In her statement to the CCD, Abeywickrema has said that the person who had given the contract to the five suspects wanted them to take care of her and fetch the goods. "I do not know what he meant by goods and take care of me," she told The Island yesterday.

Police sources said that two of the suspects were still being treated at the National Hospital and the other two were being questioned on detention orders.

However, statements had not yet been recorded from the two suspects being held on detention orders, sources said.

Two of the four suspects are army deserters identified as K. P. Chamara Kumara of Weralupitiya, Avissawella and Rifleman Asanka Ubeysiri. Of the five suspects, three are brothers.

One of the brothers was shot dead by the police when he resisted arrest.

Police said yesterday that the suspects were robbers who had carried out a number of robberies in the area and the Saturday’s break-in was one of them.