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| Sunday, 11 January 2004 |
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Editor, Sunday Observer. E-mail: [email protected] Snail mail : Sunday Observer, 35, D.R.Wijewardana Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Telephone : 94 11 2429239 / 2331181 Fax : 94 11 2429230 Terror in Hulftsdorp Yet another killing has occurred on the premises of a court. On Friday, a major underworld figure who had been in police custody and was undergoing trial for several cases and who had been a key source of evidence for the Police in some crucial criminal cases, was gunned down in broad daylight inside the compound of the Colombo Magistrate's Court. This is the very latest killing of an underworld figure in police custody in a long list of such killings in which either the main suspect or a key witness in criminal cases are eliminated in complete subversion of the criminal justice system. Not only was the victim the main suspect in several cases of violent crime, including murder, but he was also a very important witness and source of evidence for the prosecution and police authorities in relation to other major cases. It is possible that some of these prosecutions may now fail because of the loss of this key source of evidence. Thus this murder, like many similar ones before it, is a serious obstruction of justice. It is the subversion of the whole system of law and order in the country. The fact that it occurred in the heart of the national justice system, in Hulftsdorp, serves only to drive home the degree to which this subversion has penetrated the country's structure of law and order. It draws attention to the fact that the machinations to obstruct justice now reach deep into the heart of the judicial system. How is it that the killing of criminal suspects and key witnesses occurs within the supposedly secure confines of police or Prisons Department or judicial custody? This is the question that must be answered in any serious probe into this problem. Such a probe, of course, will expose the flaws and weakness and, perhaps, the excesses of corruption, within the system of law and order. At the same time, investigations into these individual cases of murder in Court or custody must ensure that those outsiders who are able to so effectively penetrate the law and order system to instigate such obstructions of justice are identified and brought to book. The people who dare to subvert justice by this means are obviously many, given the growing incidence of such cases of killings in court or in custody. They are then but a reflection of Sri Lankan society's own tendencies. It is clear that there are many among us who not only have the ability to perpetrate such horror, but dare to do so free of any scruples and decencies that ensure respect for the law and the processes of justice. Thus, Friday's murder in Hulftsdorp, is a pointer to a malignancy both within the country's justice system as well as in larger Sri Lankan society itself. The implications are terrifying. How long more must we suffer such terror before we are spurred to collectively act to end it? How often have calls been already made for the investigation of, and countering of, this problem? How often have national leaders and politicians promised to resolve it? Society, at present, seems to be a helpless by-stander, a mere spectator, as this terror spreads through every institution and every corner of the land. This may because while many in society itself are the perpetrators of this terror, many others, somehow touched by these dangerous forces and tendencies even in indirect ways, remain confused about their nature and implications to the community. And some of those very politicians who promise to fight corruption and the perversion of justice are often exposed as some of the very perpetrators of such perversion. Perhaps only the severity of the attrition of this terror will bring society to its senses. Till then, the perversion of justice will continue and the terror will remain. |
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