Expeditious or Expedient justice

In Sri Lanka, one rarely sees the wheels of justice moving so fast to prosecute people responsible for perpetrating major crimes. Although, there were times when the country had many ransom and abduction cases, very few cases saw the light at the end of the long tunnel of justice, as investigations over these cases either slowed down, were suspended or stopped when the investigations targeted influential people in the highest echelons in the country.

Nevertheless, the abduction and murder case of multi-millionaire businessman Mohammed Shiyam, in 2013 took a different turn and took the country by surprise when law enforcement authorities took speedy action to bring the culprits to book, irrespective of their positions.

This was perhaps due to the influential links the victim’s family had with the top political brass at that time, coupled with their financial clout, the country and their family members saw the wheels of justice move swiftly to apprehend those responsible for the abduction and murder of Shiyam.

The family of Mohamed Shiyam, after two and a half years after his abduction and murder saw the perpetrators, former DIG, Western Province North, Vass Gunawardena his son Ravindu Sameera Vass Gunawardena, a Sub Inspector and three Police constable attached to his unit being sentenced to death by the three judge High Court Bench appointed to hear the case.

But questions are being raised as to whether the family of Shiyam were satisfied with the judgement due to the controversial statement Shiyam’s father Mohamed Deen made to the media, soon after the three judge bench gave the judgement and the subsequent retraction of his statement given to the media.

Shiyam’s father, according to media reports has apparently signalled that it was not former DIG Vass Gunawardena who was responsible for his son’s murder and had warmly greeted Vass Gunawardena when he was taken to the prison.

In hot water

Vass Gunawardena’s family then took Shiyam’s father’s stance as a strong point to make an appeal over the judgement but Shiyam’s father retracted his statement to the media on the following day. Despite the retraction of his statement, he is apparently in hot water as there are indications from the CID that they were going to sue him for contempt of court.

However, people still question why former DIG Vass Gunawardena’s undoings in the past were not challenged so expeditiously and he was ‘fixed’ only in this case, while there are several other cases pending in the courts against him. As there is no conclusive evidence, the public came to the conclusion that he may have fallen out of favour with the previous regime and had stepped out of his limits by harming a close relative of a major financier of the previous regime. But it became a case where the Police Department had to unravel the undoings of a senior most police officer and reveal the story behind the abduction and murder of 35- year-old multi-millionaire businessman, Mohamed Shiyam. Even the CID team led by ASP Shani Abeysekera was threatened by the former DIG when he was first arrested on June 10, 2013 and the case was heard in the courts parallel to Shiyam’s murder case.

Though initially handled by the Bambalapitiya Police and then by the Colombo Crime Division, it later fell into the hands of the CID due to the sensitivity of the case.

It was on May 22 , 2013 that the first complaint was lodged at the Bambalapitiya Police, when Shiyam did not return home as usual after completing his day’s work at his factory at Saranankara Road, Dehiwala. Fouzdeen, a close friend of Shiyam’s who accompanied him to his destiny, was among the first to report Shiyam’s disapearance to the police.

Fouzdeen, another multi-millionaire businessman had invested his money in Shiyam’s business and that investment became the key issue in Shiyam’s abduction and murder case. The case had developed as Fouzdeen wanted his money returned from Shiyam and he (Shiyam) had not heeded his request.

Shyamali’s battle

Shyamali Perera, wife of Vass Gunawardena said she would file an Appeal to prove the innocence of her husband and her son and vowed to fight tooth and nail to get justice. She said it was unfortunate that a person of the calibre of her husband who had served the country faced such a fate. She also said it was not her family but also the families of the other four Police officers who were depending on her due to this situation and she was looking after them also under trying circumstances. She said she was ready to even sell her properties to prove her husband and son’s innocence in court.

Another businessman, Krishantha Koralage who also owed money to Fouzdeen had offered to help him to get his money back from Shiyam on the understanding that Fouzdeen would ignore his debt when he got his money from Shiyam.

Vass Gunwardena, the then DIG in charge of the Western Province North Division in Peliyagoda, a close friend of Krishantha Koralage turned out to be the mediator to settle this issue but it was not through a legal process. It was with this understanding that Fouzdeen and Krishantha Koralage took Mohamed Shiyam to DIG Vass Gunawardena’s subordinates on May 22, on the pretext of taking him to buy an expensive watch from a person in Kandewatta Road, Nugegoda as Shiyam was a collector of expensive watches.

Conditional pardon

On their way, Krishantha had also boarded their vehicle at Balapokuma Road and being convinced by Krishantha, Shiyam was under the impression that DIG Vass Gunawardena was in the double cab parked at Kandewatte Road and had gone to beg pardon for refusing to provide shoes to his sons on a previous occasion, when his factory was in Nedimala. But it was too late when he realised that he was caught in a trap laid by his friend Fouzdeen - to hand him over to Vass Gunawardena’s goons.The case would have gone unnoticed, had it not been for the CCTV footage of a residence in Kandewatta Road, Nugegoda, where Shiyam’s abandoned car was found the following morning, while Shiyam’s unidentified body was lying in the Gampaha hospital morgue after it was found in a thicket in Henegama in the Pugoda Police Division.

Video footage had revealed the culprits involved in the crime and that led the Colombo Crime Division to arrest Fouzdeen and Krishantha Koralage and identify Shiyam’s body at the Gampaha hospital morgue. However, they turned state witnesses after the Attorney General gave them a conditional pardon, as they convinced the CID that they had only taken Shiyam to get their money back but not to kill him.

Following the information revealed by Fouzdeen and Krishantha, Police arrested the Police personnel attached to DIG Vass Gunawardena’s unit and later DIG Vass Gunawardena too was taken in for questioning. He too was arrested on June 10, 2013 after interrogation by the CID.

According to the evidence during the case, it has been revealed that DIG Vass Gunawardena had undertaken the contract on the promise that he should be paid Rs.10 million when Shiyam returned the money to Fouzdeen. However, his son Ravindu had also joined Vass Gunawardena’s team in killing Shiyam and dumping his body in a thicket in Dompe.

Longest submissions

It also transpired that Vass Gunawardena had waited for the opportunity to take revenge from Shiyam for what he had done to two his sons when they went to his factory to get some shoes. Vass Gunawardena had known Shiyam when he was at the Colombo Fraud Bureau and had helped him to recover some of his money from another businessman.

The Attorney General’s Department filed charges against DIG Vass Gunawardena, four Police personnel attached to his special unit and his son Ravindu Vass Gunawardena. Ten charges had been filed under the Sections 102 and 209 of the Penal Code which includes murder,aiding and abetting, conspiring to murder and killing with a common aim which are offences liable for punishment under the Penal Code.

DIG Vass Gunawardena, Sub Inspector Indika Bamunusinghe, Police Constables, Gamini Sanathchandra, Priyantha Sanjeewa, Kelum Sanjeewa and Kelum Dissanayake and Ravindu Vass Gunawardena were indicted on these charges on the abduction and murder of businessman Mohamed Shiyam.

Chief Justice Mohan Peiris at the request of the then Attorney General Palitha Fernando on February 17, 2014 appointed a three Judge High Court Bench to hear the case.The charges were re-read again on March 31, 2014 and they pleaded innocent.

After the hearing the Appeal by Vass Gunawardena to the Supreme Court, challenging the decision of the Attorney General, the Trial-at- Bar heard the case from December 1, 2014. Vass Gunawardena, while being in remand prison, on several occasion tried to win the sympathy of the people and reached the local media through his wife to get his side of the story published in the media. He even threatened that he would divulge the secrets of the government if he got a chance.

During the hearing, some 115 witnesses were named to give evidence but later it increased to 307 during the proceedings. Fouzdeen Muthaliff and Krishantha Cooray became State witnesses.

According to legal sources, the submissions made in this case will go down in legal history as the longest submissions to Court, as Additional Solicitor General Ayesha Jinasena addressing Court conducted her submission for 10 days.The submissions by the prosecution, instituting charges against the accused comprised five volumes, each running into nearly 1,500 pages.Finally on November 27, almost one year after the commencement of the case, the three Judge High Court Bench found former DIG, Vass Gunawardena, his son Ravindu Gunawardena, and four others guilty of murdering businessman Mohammed Shiyam and sentenced former DIG, Vass Gunawardena, his son Ravindu Gunawardena and the four others to death. In addition to the death sentence, Vass Gunawardena was also sentenced to ten year’s rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs. 10,000. The other five accused were also ordered to serve five-year jail terms and fined Rs. 5,000 each. The 802-page judgment of the Bench comprising High Court Judges Lalith Jayasuriya (Chairman), Kusala Sarojini Weerawardena and Amendra Seneviratne was unanimous.