Gotabhaya to sue Sunday Leader for defamation

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has decided to take legal action against the Sunday Leader newspaper for defamation on articles carried by the paper on the alleged Mig-27 deal.

In a letter of demand, Rajapaksa's legal advisors have claimed Rs.1 billion as damages from the Sunday Leader newspaper.

The following is the letter of demand sent to the Editor of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickramatunga:

Defamatory articles published in the Sunday Leader

I write on the instructions of my client Mr. Nandasena Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Secretary, Ministry of Defence of No. 15/5 Baladaksha Mawatha, Colombo 3.

My client who is a son of the former parliamentarian Hon. D. A. Rajapaksa was enlisted to the Sri Lanka Army in 1971 and commissioned as a Second Lieutenant to the Sri Lanka Signal Corps in 1972. During his distinguished and unblemished career with the Sri Lanka Army my client held various command and staff appointments and took part in many victorious anti terrorist campaigns and was decorated with Rana Sura Padakkama (RSP) and Rana Wickrema Padakkama (RWP) for his bravery in the battlefield.

Incidentally, my client who is a practising Buddhist is a vegetarian and teetotaller by conviction who lives and acts according to his principles. Having retired from the service in 1991 on completing of 20 years of reckonable service my client migrated to United States of America where he worked as a Computer Systems UNIX Administrator at the Prestigious Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Prior to migrating to the United States, my client was gainfully employed in the IT field of the local corporate sector, having obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Technology from the University of Colombo.

My client returned to Sri Lanka in 2005 and took up the post of Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Public Security, Law and Order. Ever since my client took over the post of Secretary of the Ministry of Defence he has been deeply and genuinely committed and involved in the battle against the terrorists to safeguard the unity and territorial integrity of the motherland with the pure objective of creating a truly free and fair society where all Sri Lankans could peacefully co-exist irrespective of their racial, religious and/or linguistic differences.

You being the Editor of the newspaper called Sunday Leader have published in the Sunday Leader under the columns "Spotlight" and issues several false articles and statements which are per se and by innuendo defamatory of my client, in particular you have in the said articles published inter alia the following false statements which are per se and by innuendo defamatory of my client.

1. The Sunday Leader of 15th July 2007 under the banner heading "MIG deal crash lands" which include inter alia the following excerpts: Sri Lanka hastily purchased obsolete aircraft manufactured in the early '80s and considered life expired after 25 years since manufacture. The warning by Sri Lanka's Ambassador in Russia not to issue an End User Certificate in a manner that might place defence procurement in the hands of illegal or terrorist organisations went unheeded. Therefore why did Sri Lanka purchase four aircraft that are obsolete and no longer in production at inflated prices?

For a start, three of the four purchases made in 2006 were ruled out in 2000 by the SLAF TEC. The rejected aviation products were offered in two different (parts) offers. The three MIG 27 aircraft that were so rejected bear serial numbers 8371534688, 83712518044 and 83712518009.

It now transpires that instead of making it a government to government transaction, the contract recognised a third party referred to as "designated party" - a London-based company named Bellimissa Holdings Ltd., which was authorised to collect the payments on behalf of the seller, Ukrinmash, a subsidiary of a Ukrainian state company named, UKRSPETSEXPORT, Ukraine.

By the time Sri Lanka produced her second batch of MIGs to add to the SLAF fleet, three out of the four aircraft had reached 25 years of age which means they are considered "technically dead".

2. The Sunday Leader of 29th July 2007 under the banner heading "Lid blown on ghost company that did the MIG deal" which includes inter alia the following excerpts:

What has happened is that for all practical purposes Bellimissa has purchased MIG-27 aircraft from UKRINMASH for a price hitherto and yet unknown to the public. All we know is that in 2000, these very same aircraft were worth less than 1.8 million US dollars. These same aircraft were brought from Bellimissa by the air force in 2006 for 2.4 million US dollars.

In exchange for this finance package, the Defence Ministry agreed to even waive the performance bond requirements, which means in plainspeak "It doesn't matter if your planes don't work, we'll pay you, regardless." This was highlighted by The Sunday Leader in our previous coverage of this saga. This newspaper also highlighted the issue of the "End User Certificate" pointed out in a request from Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Russia, Udayanga Weeratunga. The End User Certificate service the purpose of ensuring that dangerous weapons reach safe hands. In this particular case the certificate would ideally read something akin to: "The Government of Ukraine hereby supplies the Government of Sri Lanka with 04 MIG 27 bombers," and not what actually happened - "The government of Ukraine hereby provides Bellimissa.

I am therefore instructed to demand and I do hereby demand from you the immediate payment of the said sum of Rupees One billion (Rs. 1,000,000,000) within fourteen days of the date hereof. In the event of your failure to comply with this demand as aforesaid I have further instructions from my client to institute legal proceedings against you and Messers Leader Publications (Pvt) Ltd for the recovery of the said sum together with legal interest and cost of suit.