Playing politics with murder investigations?

by Ranil Wijayapala

When the body of Wasim Thajudeen, the popular ruggerite who died mysteriously in May 2012 was exhumed a week before the last general election in August 2015, the public held divergent views about how the investigations were being conducted.

In a politically polarised society, a segment of the public believed political forces working against the Rajapaksa regime were exploiting on Wassim Thajudeens death to influence public opinion against former President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the general election, as he made a bid to sweep into power as the Prime Minister.

There was another segment who believed that the investigations into the incident were suppressed by the previous Rajapaksa regime due to their alleged involvement in the incident, and demanded the investigations to be conducted and the perpetrators to be arrested immediately.

The moderate segment who believed that justice should prevail, irrespective of party affiliations, sought an impartial inquiry into the incident to do justice to Thajudeen’s family. Thus they wanted to prove that the law enforcement authorities could effectively handle cases of this nature, if there was no political pressure brought on them.

Whatever opinion the public had regarding the investigation, they wish to know what exactly happened to this popular rugby player in 2012 and who was really responsible for his death, after it was established in court, via the JMO report, that Thajudeen’s death was not due to an accident.

Slow progress

Since there is no apparent pressure from politicians after the present government took office, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probed the death step by step, closely analysing the evidence they had gathered throughout the inquiry so far. But what is perturbing is the slow progress of investigations, despite the ‘big’ talk of politicians that the bigwigs behind the death would be arrested soon.

However, the public believes there is a political twist to the incident, because as soon as there is some kind of political upheaval, Thajudeen’s death is brought to the forefront. The alleged involvement of a member of the Rajapaksa family is brought up every time former President Rajapaksa makes a political move against the present government and this has now become the talking point among the public.

Speculation was rife that Yoshitha, the second son of former President Rajapaksa would be arrested over the death of Thajudeen. But he was arrested by the Financial Crimes Investigations Division on charges under the Money Laundering Act. The public is waiting with bated breath to witness the arrest of any political bigwig over the incident.

It seems like the CID is slowly moving in to trace vital clues about the the incident after Dialog Axiata, which dragged divulging information for quite some time, provided the vital telephone data records to the CID on the request of the Attorney General’s Department to move forward with the case.

The CID has already obtained travel bans on six personnel whom they believe were allegedly involved in the incident.

The six persons include Captain Tissa, who had functioned as the personal bodyguard to former First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa and two sons MP Namal Rajapaksa and Lieutenant Yoshitha Rajapaksa.

Number plates

The names of MP Namal Rajapaksa and Yoshitha Rajapaksa have already been dragged into the investigation as they had allegedly having given orders to the perpetrators to commit the alleged murder of Wassim Thajudeen, though there is no conclusive evidence to prove this. However, the CID is now faced with another obstacle in unearthing vital information from the video footage the police recovered from Kirulapona and Narahenpita junctions regarding the vehicles which had followed Thajudeen’s vehicle, before he met with his tragic death.

The video footage recorded on the date of the incident, recovered by the Police showed a car similar to that of Thajudeen’s being followed by a few vehicles.

The video footage was sent to the Colombo University’s School of Computing(UCSC) to Court as the number plates and those who were in the vehicle were not clearly visible.

On January 4, 2016 the University of Colombo presented its report to Court, which showed that the pictures were not clear due to the light from the street lamp and vehicle lights.

As the analysis done by the UCSC could not trace vital information regarding the vehicles in the CCTV footage, the Colombo Additional Magistrate Nishantha Peiris in January 2016 ordered the CID to send the video footage to a Forensic laboratary abroad for further examination of the footage.

The UCSC in its report recommended that the video footage be examined at a well-equipped forensic laboratory abroad such as the FBI, MPS or the new Scotland Yard as the poor quality of the video footage and the UCSC’s limited technical facilities could not do so. Although the court had given instructions a month ago, the CID has not taken action to send the video footage abroad for further analysis.

The public and civil society are raising concern about the on-going investigations as they feel the Police is being lethargic over the investigations.

Scientific evidence

It is well understood that proving a case of this nature, in court requires lot of scientific evidence and eyewitness accounts, but the case should not be used to drag the names of politicos into the incident from time to time and keep the public ‘entertained’ after raising the issue on political stages.

The public is well aware that there may be attempts to suppress witnesses by vested interests as there is a well-knit network to defend the suspected perpetrators behind the incident, but the CID with its proven skills for conducting such investigations under difficult circumstances should undertake the challenge and reveal the real picture without keeping the public in the dark.

That is what the public of this country requires from law enforcement authorities and from a responsible and law abiding government.