News
All Saints’ Church grenade incident: Arrested doctor’s son challenges CCD statement
Counterclaims have been put forward with regard to the confession recorded by the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) from a retired doctor, who was arrested in connection with the hand grenade found at All Saints’ Church in Borella recently.
A fundamental rights (FR) application is to be filed at the Supreme Court against the CCD by Oshala Herath, the son of the arrested doctor. Mr. Herath, a political activist, says his father’s rights were violated during the arrest and when recording the confession in connection with the highly publicised incident.
Denying the allegations against his father, Mr. Herath claimed the CCD was attempting to connect his mother’s death to the incident by saying his father was going through trauma and might have resorted to such action.
“My father is a man who is devoted to his family and I believe that the CCD had forced him to confess. Our lawyers have still not got an opportunity to meet my father. He had been arrested without a warrant and the police had not provided any document when taking ten mobile phones, the laptop, the CCTV equipment and other belongings from our residence as case productions,” he said.
He claimed the police had used the media and misrepresented air rifles and other mementos found in his residence as firearms.
“These are toys that any can buy at their neighbourhood market. My father, who retired from the state service, had never been involved in party politics and is now being made to pay for my political activity,” Mr. Herath said.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the hand grenade found at a leading Colombo hospital in September last year is almost at the conclusion level, according to the Police.
Police Media Spokesman Nihal Thalduwa said the Police were still trying to work out the actual picture of these two incidents and further investigations were being carried out based on the confession recorded by the retired doctor.
“We still cannot connect the two incidents as investigations are still going on,” the SSP said.
Fr. Jude Krishantha, Media Director of the Archdiocese of Colombo, said the Catholic Church had also appointed a committee to study the matter and they would conduct a meeting soon to discuss the progress of the investigation.
So far, the CCD had arrested seven suspects over the incident and informed the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court that they were being detained for further questioning.
One suspect who is under detention had also provided a confidential statement to Colombo’s Additional Magistrate Rajindra Jayasuriya for more than an hour.
The CCD informed the Additional Magistrate that based on the retired doctor’s confession, it had detained a person named ‘Ranale Ruwan’ from the Ranna area in Hambantota on Thursday.
According to the inquiry, Ranale Ruwan was wanted by the authorities since it was he who gave the hand grenade to the retired doctor, who was a former director of a state hospital.
The CCD further informed Court that it had also detained a 65-year-old man from Panamure area. He is believed to have placed the hand grenade at the church in Borella as seen in the church cctv footage which the police initially failed to view.
The police arrested the man after Colombo’s Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith addressed a news conference where he questioned the police as to why they did not want to view the morning recording of the cctv footage. It showed the suspect placing an object near a statue where the grenade was found.
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