Exclusive: Leaked Emails From Attoney Hemantha Warnakulasuriya PC To Sonali Implies Rajapaksa Regime Plans To Fix Fonseka For Lasantha Murder

January 8, 2014 

Leaked emails from President’s counsel Hemantha Warnakulasuriya which are in Colombo Telegraph‘s
possession suggest that the Rajapaksa regime tried to use Lasantha Wickrematunge murder investigation for Mahinda Rajapaksa’s 2010 presidential election campaign.

Hemantha Warnakulasuriya

At the end of 2009 presidential election campaign Lasantha Wickrematunge’s murder was being exploited by both presidential candidates, with Rajapaksa and Fonseka trading accusations at each other. The Rajapaksa camp through Ambassador for Sri Lanka in Rome, President’s counsel Hemantha Warnakulasuriya reached out to those close to Wickrematunge including his second wife Sonali Samarasinghe, the Colombo Telegraph learns.

Leaked emails from Hemantha Waranakulasuriya show that he tried to get an official request for an “impartial and thorough investigation” into the death of Lasantha from Lasantha’s family.

After eleven months of the murder, on December 13, 2009, Hemantha Warnakulasuriya wrote to Sonali Samarasinghe; “if you are interested I will do everything possible to bring the murderers to book. If you so wish even I could request the government to have an independent commission comprising of Supreme Court judges or even an international tribunal. But first there must a through investigation by the police. but I need your formal request or approval “

Why did the Rajapaksa regime after eleven months wake up and find that the time is ‘ripe’ for an inquiry into Lasantha’s murder. Was it any less ripe immediately following the brutal assassination?

What the present Regime and the Rajapaksas thought of Lasantha Wickrematunge at the time was abundantly clear. When interviewed by the BBC in the aftermath of the murder, Gotabaya RajapaksaPresident Rajapaksa’s brother and Secretary to the Ministry of Defence giggled into the cameras and asked with derision ‘who is Lasantha?”, “why should we care of (sic) him”.

Why did the Rajapaksa regime want an official request from the family of Wickrematunge at that stage when it ignored all its entreaties for an independent international inquiry for one year.  Surely a democratic government under the Rule of Law needs no prompting to initiate an independent inquiry into a brutal murder.

As Colombo Telegraph has exposed President Mahinda Rajapaksa telling Lal Wickrematunge three times that his brother Lasantha was killed by Former Army Chief Sarath Fonseka. If the former Army General was involved in Lasantha’s murder, one may wonder why he was not prosecuted?

That leads to the belief that President Rajapaksa knows who murdered Lasantha. That would also mean that Rajapaksa, in his function as Minister of Defence, knows who committed murder. If this is the case, why doesn’t he inform [the Criminal Investigation Department] and provide evidence?

We published below the email exchange in full;                              Read More

Hemantha to Sonali