A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, February 2, 2014
Paint baas confesses to killing journalist He broke into house, thinking no one was at home She was killed as she recognised the suspect Victim’s BlackBerry phone recovered from killer
Mel Gunasekera
Police last evening arrested the prime suspect in the killing of journalist Mel Gunasekera at Battaramulla.
Police spokesman SSP Ajith Rohana told The Island last night that the
officers of the special Crime Investigation Unit of the Mirihana Police
had made the arrest at the New Road, Dompe. The suspect Samson Joseph
Anthony (39) of the same address is a house painter and he had worked at
Mel’s house three months ago.
The suspect has told the police that he had entered the house to rob it,
thinking that there was no one there as he knew that the Gunsekeras
went to church every Sunday morning. Unexpectedly, he had seen Mel and
killed her as she recognised him.
SSP Rohana said that the police had recovered the slain journalist’s BlackBerry phone in the possession of the suspect.
The suspect had been identified by the footages of the CCTV cameras fixed in the house, the SSP said.
Police probing the murder of journalist Mel (Melicia) Gunasekera (40),
yesterday morning said the investigations were in progress on the basis
of fingerprints and CCTV footage obtained from her home at Gemunu
Mawatha, Sri Subhuthipura, Battaramulla.
Addressing a hurriedly summoned press conference at the police
headquarters, Police spokesman SSP Ajith Rohana said that seven special
police teams under DIG Sumith Edirisinghe and Nugegoda SP Mervyn
Wickremesinghe had been deployed to investigate the killing.Melicia had
been killed between 6.15 am and 8.15 am while her family members were
attending a church service, SSP Rohana said. Although there had been
four dogs at home, no neighbour had heard them bark in the morning, he
said. Therefore the killing may have been committed by a person or group
of persons the dogs were familiar with.
The police spokesman said that footage of three CCTV cameras of the
neighbours of the murdered journalist had also been obtained and the
investigators expected that they would provide valuable leads to
investigations.
Gunasekera’s body was found in her kitchen by her family members upon returning home from church. Her throat had been slit.
Police found parts of a knife and a screwdriver suspected to have been
brought to the house by the killer/s who gained entry by removing the
grille of a French window.
Police had brought in K-9 assistance to trace the whereabouts of the
killer. Rockey, a police dog of the Mirihana police station, led the
team of policemen for about one kilometre along the road and police
suspect that it was the route taken by the killer after committing the
crime. The footages of the CCTV camera fixed by the house owners along
this road were recovered by the investigators.
According to the evidence gathered during the preliminary
investigations, the police suspect the killer/s had jumped over the
parapet wall of the two-storeyed house of the journalist, and removed
the grille of one of the windows to enter the house.
Neighbours living in the house opposite the Mels’ had heard her scream and come out to check but had seen nothing suspicious.
Police said that the four dogs had been unleashed in the garden. Thus
the killer/s should have been familiar to them, police said.
Police are also investigating to find the whereabouts of some masons who had been working at the house sometime back.
Kaduwela Acting Magistrate Kamal Wijesiri visited the scene and conducted the preliminary magisterial inquiry.
Mel’s father is an accountant/businessman, who owned two factories
including one near his residence. But they were closed in recent years
after he had fallen ill and his two children, Mel and a younger brother,
who is also an accountant, were not interested following in their
father’s footsteps.
Armed with a degree from the University of East Landon, Mel joined The
Sunday Times Business Desk in 1996 and she soon became the News Editor
Business. From there she went to be the founder Editor of the lbo.lk.
She also had a stint with the international news agency Agence France
Presse (AFP), Colombo as a correspondent. She was working as one of the
Assistant Vice Presidents of Fitch Ratings Lanka at the time of her
death.