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Report shows Lanka’s jails dens of corruption
A notorious underworld leader killed when two prison buses were ambushed in Kalutara in February maintained a personal Facebook account while incarcerated and posted photographs of himself posing with prison officers, the report of a fact-finding committee states.
The report also held that there was widespread corruption in Sri Lanka’s jails and said the Prisons Department was doing nothing to root it out. Prison Reforms Minister D.M. Swaminathan appointed the committee to inquire into the ambush in Etanamadala. It left Aruna Udayanga Pathirana alias Samayang, four of his associates and two prison guards dead.
The report was handed over in May, at which time the Sunday Times filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to obtain a copy. This was finally made available last month. A separate RTI application filed with the Department of Prisons for information about the quantity of mobile phones and drugs recovered in jails between 2011 and 2017 and number of prisons officers who were disciplined has gone unaddressed.
Prisons officers carried out illegal activities, including use of mobile phones inside prisons; making mobile phones available to prisoners; facilitating contact between prisoners, their cohorts and families; and conducting monetary transactions through ‘ezcash’ and other systems.
Corruption allowed underworld-linked inmates to maintain contact with associates outside as well as plan, initiate and monitor crimes from inside, the report states. The drugs trade was also conducted from within. “How many such corrupt officers have been punished by prisons authorities?” the report asks.
“Those responsible officers of whichever the positions are [sic] should be dealt (with) severely and if the authorities are not capable of doing this they should be removed from their positions and should see to an end of this menace,” the committee recommends. “The Ministry has a greater role in this.”
“There is ample evidence that corrupt officials make things worse in the prison environment,” it adds. “They should be dealt with severely. The prison police should be given sufficient authority to handle such officials and they should be mandated to take deterrent measures and protect the good name of the ‘house of corrections’.”
The committee states that officers from Kalutara prison and the police believe information about the movements of Pathirana and his associates were leaked to the assailants from inside jail. Three other buses left prison on the same route at different times that morning.
The plan could not have been successfully managed without accurate details–such as date, time of departure, the route and its condition, where and how the suspects were positioned inside the bus and the precise time the two buses would reach the ambush site–being fed to attackers beforehand. But there is no mechanism now for the Prisons Department to gather information on how such details are being leaked.
A double-cab blocked the path of the bus and a group of attackers from an embankment on the left opened fire while another fired from the road. All had been clothed in police-like uniforms with decorations similar to those of police officers. Prison guards were not prepared to face the situation. The attackers studied the geography of the area. The route they took avoided almost all major roads.
Many mobile phones were found inside the Kalutara prison, officers told the Committee. Seizing of some of these instruments helped thwart a plot devised by Pathirana to kill his main rival ‘Angoda Lokka’. Pathirana was first housed in the E ward but was transferred to the A ward over suspicions that he was involved in clandestine activity. There was evidence he used mobile phones freely within prison.
Pathirana’s second wife told the committee she spoke to him nearly every day while he was in prison. She said he used mobile phones given to him by friends and relatives who visited him. At other times, he used the phones of prisons officers. He was also said to be using Skype, Viber, etc, to have contact with women outside the jail. “This should drive the authorities to find out what is exactly happening inside the prisons without simply denying,” the committee asserts.
The illegal use of phones has become endemic within prisons, it continues.. Efforts such as forming a special unit to detect them and installing jamming units around Welikada have been ineffective. Pathirana had been wearing several items of jewellery including bracelets and rings. “It is surprising that some prisoners and suspects are enjoying undue privileges in a place where the law should be enforced without any fear or favour,” the committee observes.
The report highlights glaring security lapses that led to the death of seven people. Pathirana had survived an assassination attempt at the Kaduwela Magistrate’s Court in September 2015. There was a serious threat to his life but there was no preparedness. All five suspects were in one bus. A request for police protection, which should have been made at least 24 hours before the scheduled transport, was conveyed only 18 hours prior.
Officers’ leave records are incomplete. Reasons for obtaining leave are not clearly or are incorrectly recorded. At least 18 officers from the Kalutara prison were away on the day of the attack. “Any change of the pattern in obtaining leave and surreptitious reasons given for leave, if any, should be investigated,” the report emphasises.
“Safety of the suspects is not limited to this kind of attacks but is a problem all the way to the courts,” it states. “Ordinary civilians, school children, office workers, private sector workers, all those who are going to earn a living and those who return home after the chores of the day are in danger in the absence of proper plans for prison transport.”
“This is the first incident of its kind,” it points out. “We cannot be complacent that this is the last. It may be the beginning. Therefore it is a challenging event. The underworld has tested and found that the prisons are a lackluster, languish [sic] or sluggish lot. They know the weak points of the Department of Prisons and the prisons establishments. It is therefore necessary for the Ministry to be forward-looking.”
The committee was chaired by Rumy Marzook, former Magistrate and former Commissioner General of Prisons. Other members were former Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Defence S Medawewa and former Senior Deputy Inspector General (SDIG) of Police Gamini Nawaratne.