20th October 1996

By Mudaliyar

Do you remember the night when we were forced not to take even a drop of water to quench our thirst. A rumor was afloat that the Tigers had poisoned the drinking waters of Ambatale reservoir with cyanide. A few years back our tea sales abroad dropped dramatically as Tigers announced they had poisoned our teas with cyanide. Cyanide poisoning and cyanide capsules have become the trade marks of the Tigers.

Before they are selected to go on a suicide mission the Black Tigers who form the suicide squad do not worship the pantheon of Hindu gods for success. Nor do they make any vows before any other god. Their mission is to kill and get killed in the process. The day on which they are chosen for the task, they have a rendezvous with their supremo or Avatar, Vellupillai Prabakaran, and dine with him. Then the supreme commander ties the greatest knot ever tied by a human being on another. That is the 'cyanide' capsule, which is ceremoniously tied around the neck of a suicide bomber by the great liberator himself.

Training

The other militants when they complete their guerrilla training, are given a cyanide capsule to be worn around their neck which symbolizes their ascendancy to a fully fledged freedom fighter. For the Tigers, cardinal sin is to get caught alive. " Dead men tell no tales".

In Sicily, the Mafiosi take the oath of ' Omerio ', - The Oath of Silence .

At the LTTE the oath is the oath of death. So cyanide and the LTTE form such an important union that even most experienced police officers have not been able to prevent Tigers from taking cyanide in captivity.

Kumarappa, one of the most trusted lieutenants of Prabhakaran, committed suicide whilst being detained by the IPKF. The Sri Lankan Navy took precautions to remove from the body of suspect militants cyanide capsules. Nonetheless, when they were about to be brought to Colombo for questioning, all of them committed suicide by taking cyanide capsules. 'Varathan' the main suspect of the J O C bombing committed suicide by biting a cyanide capsule . All efforts by the detectives to apprehend him alive, became fruitless. All other information about the bombing died with ' Varathan .'

Govt. Analyst

Y. Mahesan, the Government Analyst, was called by the Lalith Athulathmudali Commission to testify on cyanide and other matters connected with the investigation. She quite candidly admitted that she is not a forensic scientist. She has been trained in foods beverages and other matters connected with the food science. But she made some startling revelations when she gave evidence at the Lalith Athulathmudali Commission, concerning cyanide and the mystery body found at Mugalan Road. This body was only seen by the public at 10'o clock in the morning the day after the shooting of Mr. Athulathmudali. She said swabs taken from the mouth of this mystery man did not contain even a trace of cyanide. After it was found, the body was taken to the JMO's Office and a postmortem examination was held by Dr. Lalantha de Alwis, the senior most Judicial Medical Officer in Colombo.

But the J.M.O said the mouth of the victim smelt of cyanide. Ms. Mahesan in her evidence confirmed that cyanide has a peculiar smell which can be discerned even by a school girl at the school lab. " Cyanide smells of almonds,'' she said.

Dr. Lalantha de Alwis has in addition found bits and pieces of glass in the mouth of the victim and the tongue of the victim had injuries which were compatible with the injuries one would sustain if one bites a small glass capsule. Dr. de Alwis took the mouth swabs, blood, and the contents of the stomach from the victim, and sent them to the Government Analyst's Department for analysis.

Swabs

The sample of swabs from the mouth did not have cyanide. The siliceous matter that was found in the swabs was not glass but could very well be sand. Mr. Vithanachchi and Mr. M. A. J. Mendis of the Government Analyst's Department were the Forensic Scientists who reported that there was no cyanide in the mouth swabs or in the blood or in the stomach content. Ms. Mahesan said these reports were not forwarded to the magistrate before he issued the verdict of suicide on the death of the victim (Ragunathan). It was the commission that found out for the first time about the contents of these reports. Having meticulously perused the files, it found that all reports on the mouth, blood and stomach of Ragunathan had no cyanide.

These revelations made the commission to observe that " if the victim (Ragunathan) did not die of cyanide poisoning or by the gun shot injury, then what did he die of? Was there a suppression of the actual reason for his death?", pondered the Chairman.

Dr. Lalantha de Alwis is the Senior most Judicial Officer in Colombo. Can he make a mistake about the smell of cyanide? Did he see sand in the mouth of the victim instead of glass? Were there not cut marks in the tongue of Ragunathan? If all these questions are answered in the affirmative then why did the Government Analyst Department fail to find cyanide in the mouth swabs, blood or in the stomach.

We were all waiting anxiously for the cross-examination of Ms. Mahesan to find out more about this mystery. Ms. Mahesan admitted she was not a Toxicologist. The laboratory tests were conducted not by her but by two other forensic scientists.

Samples

She was asked whether her department received any samples of either mouth swabs, blood or stomach contents of other terrorists who had committed suicide by biting cyanide capsules.; She admitted that a large number of terrorists commit suicide before being captured by the law enforcement authority or the enemy, by biting cyanide capsules. The postmortem examination of those terrorists would have shown the cause of death as cyanide poisoning. Then as a routine swabs from the mouth, sample of blood and the stomach content would have been sent to the Government Analyst for analysis. Did the Government Analyst find cyanide in these samples?

The counsel for the defense referred to the suicide bomber who turned herself into a veritable human bomb to blow off the late Gamini Dissanayake. The severed head of this suicide bomber was found on the top of a roof. At that time the I.G.P. quickly denied that it was the work of the LTTE. There were on going peace talks. To rule out the possibility of the LTTE killing the main opposition presidential candidate, the mouth swabs and the blood samples were taken and sent to the Government Analyst's Department for analysis.

Scotland Yard

The JMO took swabs from the mouth and blood from the body and sent one sample to the Government Analyst and the other to the forensic laboratory at Scotland Yard. Ms.Mahesan denied that she knew the results of this test done by Scotland Yard, but later admitted that the test carried out by the Government Analyst's Department showed that there were no traces of cyanide. Scotland Yard on the other hand found cyanide in the mouth swabs and not in the blood. These findings proved who was behind the killing of the Presidential Candidate, the LTTE, RAW or any other local group.

This report from Scotland Yard sealed the other theories. What is more important was that the woman suicide bomber had taken the cyanide capsule into her mouth and detonated the bomb. Due to the explosion the capsule burst inside her mouth but she died of the explosion and logically no cyanide was found in the blood. Bravo Scotland Yard.

The question

The million dollar question was, "why, did then the Government Analyst's Department fail to detect cyanide in the mouth swabs of Ragunathan?" What is the sensitivity of the tests? The counsel challenged Ms. Mahesan to produce a single positive report for cyanide of any person who had taken cyanide capsules and committed suicide. The Counsel said so far not a single case had been detected by the Department.

Ms. Mahesan on the next day submitted statistics and said the department has found eighty cases of poisoning by cyanide. The counsel said he challenged the department to produce a single report or the name of any person who had died of swallowing or biting a cyanide capsule. Ms. Mahesan had to admit that of the four persons referred to the department who had died of biting cyanide capsules, samples of two persons were found to be positive, but the capsule was found outside the body. The results of the other two were not known to her. So we are back at square one.

Ms. Mahesan could not confirm or deny whether they found cyanide on the sample submitted to them. This was a little strange, as the counsel challenged her to produce a single report which has shown to be positive of cyanide. The defense counsel said the copper acetate and benzedrine acetate method used by the Government Analyst's Department, where a test paper is dipped in to a sample to find out whether the test paper turns blue, cyanide is quite old and is not used by modern laboratories all over the world. The counsel suggested that the Water Resources Board uses a more advanced method where barbutric acid and Peridene is used to isolate cyanide .

He suggested that the method employed by the department has a sensitivity of 5 micrograms. Fatality for cyanide is 2 micrograms and would not be detected by this method. Ms. Mahesan flatly denied this suggestion but did not produce any report or references to show that her department had detected cyanide poisoning cases where cyanide capsules had been taken by the victim . The counsel suggested that gas chromatographic head space technique and micro diffusion technique are being used by laboratories all over the world. He also pointed out that though the Government Analyst's Department did not find cyanide in the blood in the stomach contents of the victim (Ragunathan) Dr. Shepered who performed the second postmortem on the victim ( Ragunathan) took samples of blood or and the stomach contents . These two samples were analyzed by the Forensic Experts of Scotland Yard Laboratory and found positive for cyanide .

Techniques

Then the important question for all of us is to find out whether the Government Analyst's Department with the present techniques adopted by them can detect cyanide in small quantities, which may be fatal to humans. If they cannot then there is a great danger of cyanide being introduced to our water, food and tea and to our exports without the Government Analysts Department being able to isolate and identify them. (Because the sensitivity of the tests do not permit such a detection). What about all those terrorists who died of cyanide poisoning before or whilst being in captivity . The doctor would opine that the suspects died of cyanide poisoning, but the test carried out by the Government Analyst Department would be negative. Someday the police officers or the members of the Armed forces who captured the terrorist, would be brought before a commission or a court of law and charged with killing the suspect and adducing a false cause of death, with a conniving JMO. Those officers may even be charged for murder on some fabricated evidence.

So it is important for the President who is also the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Justice to go into this matter and find out the truth. If the methodology is out of date import modern techniques, and bring our laboratories to the standards of other labs around the world specially in relation to cyanide, which has become so common like the bombs and terrorism.

The Government Analyst's Department strongly denies that tests carried out for cyanide poisoning are inadequate.

Department officials said the scientific methods they used were sufficiently sensitive to cyanide.

"We can detect fatal levels of cyanide poisoning in a human being," an official said.

The officials were reluctant to give more details about specific tests and the level of cyanide which can be detected by these tests. During the past decade a good number of suspected cyanide related deaths referred to the Department for chemical verification have tested positive. Therefore the question whether the testing methods are adequate should be answered in the affirmative, they said.

The officials also claimed that the methodology was not out of date. It is an internationally accepted method and will give the answer as positive or negative, but will not quantify the levels of the toxin, they said.

Every year the Government Analyst's Department updates equipment and lab accessories needed by the 40-strong scientific cadre there.

If there was a need to update the equipment or methods it would have been done without delay, these officials said adding that there is no restriction imposed on the purchase of equipment - financially or otherwise.

According to the administration report of the Government Analyst's Department for 1995, the number of cyanide poisoning cases tested by the Department last year is only four. In 1994 the figure was six and in 1993 it was twelve. It is not revealed how many of these cases were found to be positive.

Requests for cyanide poisoning tests are usually made by a JMO. The Government Analyst's test for cyanide poisoning was accepted by magistrates as scientific proof, the officials said.

They said ready-for-the-market tea was regularly tested by the department. Tests for cyanide is done only if a special request is made. They also said scientists at the Water Resources Board and the Colombo Municipal Council who check cyanide in water reservoirs were trained at the Government Analyst's Department.

A.R.L. Wijesekera, a retired Government Analyst commenting on the cyanide tests said he was quite satisfied with the tests used by the department to detect cyanide. "No doubt there are more sophisticated methods now. But a new method does not necessarily mean better. Both methods would give the same test result."

He said although the latest equipment would be quicker and more sensitive to minute particles, there is no reason to think that the older methods are ineffective.

Mr. Wijesekera, who has been in the Government Analyst's Department from 1954 to 1992 said the methods used by the department was more than adequate to detect cyanide in fatal quantities.-TD