News

Refuting a claim made by Health Minister Rajitha Seneratne that the 24 percent income tax imposed on medical specialists would be reduced to 15 percent, the Ministry of Finance in a press release said that no such changes have been made. 

"The Ministry of Finance and Media wishes to say that no changes in the tax rate for the calculation of Income Tax or the PAYE tax has been made. The members of the Association of Medical Specialists held a discussion with the Minister of Finance and Media Mangala Samaraweera where agreement was reached to amend the process of the expenditure calculation for the purpose of income tax payment", Finance Ministry said.

Earlier today, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said that the income tax paid by specialist doctors has been reduced to 15 percent from 24 percent following a discussion with Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera.

North Korea had violated a textile ban and exported goods to Sri Lanka between October 2017 and March 2018, a UN report revealed.
North Korea has not stopped its nuclear and missile programs in violation of United Nations sanctions, according to a confidential UN report seen by Reuters.

The six-month report by independent experts monitoring the implementation of UN sanctions was submitted to the Security Council North Korea sanctions committee late on Friday.

“(North Korea) has not stopped its nuclear and missile programs and continued to defy Security Council resolutions through a massive increase in illicit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products, as well as through transfers of coal at sea during 2018,” the experts wrote in the 149-page report.

The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

The UN report said North Korea is cooperating militarily with Syria and has been trying to sell weapons to Yemen’s Houthis.

Pyongyang also violated a textile ban by exporting more than $100 million in goods between October 2017 and March 2018 to China, Ghana, India, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey and Uruguay, the report said.

The report comes as Russia and China suggest the Security Council discuss easing sanctions after US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met for the first time in June and Kim pledged to work toward denuclearization.

The United States and other council members have said there must be strict enforcement of sanctions until Pyongyang acts.

The UN experts said illicit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products in international waters had “increased in scope, scale and sophistication.” They said a key North Korean technique was to turn off a ship’s tracking system, but that they were also physically disguising ships and using smaller vessels. (Colombo Gazette)

A person has been arrested at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) for carrying a pistol. According to the Police the arrested is a former Sri Lankan Air Force pilot, now working for a domestic airline in Kenya.

The pistol was found in his luggage, at the final checking area. He was about to board a flight headed to Dubai when the arrest was made.

Police say the reason for him carrying a pistol has not been discovered yet.

SLFP General Secretary Prof. Rohana Lakshman says the party has launched short term and long term plans to field President Maithripala Sirisena as the common candidate at the next Presidential election to avoid a tripartite battle. 

He says if such a battle occurred it will allow a dictatorship to come into power which will negatively affect the peace and democracy in the country.

He also revealed that if the President decides to contest as the common candidate a large number of UNP and JO stalwarts are willing to throw their weight behind him as well.

Sri Lanka Navy has intercepted a trawler and arrested 40 illegal migrants in the deep seas last night (05).

According to the Navy spokesman, the trawler was spotted in the deep sea 117 nautical miles from Colombo and intercepted by two Dvora craft. The arrested migrants are between 17 and 41 years of age and include 19 males and 21 females.

The migrants and the vessel have been brought to the Colombo harbour this morning. The Navy has provided treatment to some of the arrested people and handed them over to the Colombo Ports Police for further investigations.

Office on Missing Persons (OMP) tasked with investigating war time disappearances is providing financial support to the excavations at the mass grave recently discovered in Mannar, the Chairman of OMP President's Counsel Saliya Peiris said.
 
The chairman said the OMP decided to fund the excavations to ensure work continues uninterrupted as long as it is necessary.
 
So far skeletal remains of 62 people and human bones have been unearthed from the mass grave.
 
It has been reported that Senior Judicial Medical Officer Saminda Rajapakse, who is leading the investigation has requested assistance from the OMP.
 
The funds from the OMP will cover the basic costs of the forensic specialists conducting the excavations including transport, accommodation and other support services, Sunday Observer reported.
 
Dr. Rajapakse said the samples of the skeletal remains will be sent to a laboratory in Miami, Florida for radiocarbon dating in order to determine the time frame of the burials. However, a definite decision regarding when to send the samples has not been made yet.
 
Source : Colombo Page

Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna member, Maharagama Urban Council Chairman Tiraj Lakruwan Piyaratne has announced that he should be addressed as ‘Sir’ going forward. He has displayed the announcement in his office. 

It reads “As the first citizen in the city, and as the Chief executive of the council, all staff and members of the public should address as Sir”. The notice has now gone viral and been earning the wrath of the public. According to sources, Tiraj who contested under Independent Group 2, with a group from Badalgama in Gampaha going on to win and become the UC Chairman according to him is a close confidant of the Dinesh Gunawardena and Rajapaksa families. 

Sources say the notice was displayed on the advice of a political stalwart in the area due to an ongoing grudge with Kanthi Kodikara and several others. They also say Tiraj has been very insecure since being appointed claiming that there is a conspiracy against him and that no one treats him well. 

The public in the area says the Maharagama UC has been declining since Tiraj’s appointment while regretting voting for those with a mentality such as that of Tiraj.

Former Media Spokesman, and DIG of Colombo North, Ajith Rohana has been appointed as DIG Traffic and Road Safety. IGP Pujith Jayasundara has transferred six DIG’s including Ajith Rohana. 

According to Police HQ, the transfers were carried out on the recommendation of the IGP and approval of the National Police Commission. 20 Police Officers have been transffered this week. 

Accordingly, 6 DIG’s, 3 SP’s, 2 ASP’s, 3 CI’s and 6 IP’s have been transffered with immediate effect.

At least 91 people are now known to have died after a powerful earthquake hit the Indonesian island of Lombok. Hundreds of people have been wounded by Sunday's quake, officials say, mostly in the north of the island. The 6.9 magnitude tremor was fairly shallow, occurring only 30km (18 miles) underground. It damaged thousands of buildings and triggered power cuts.

About 1,000 foreign tourists are being evacuated from the nearby Gili islands and at least one person died on Bali. Video footage from Bali, to the west of Lombok, showed people running from their homes screaming.

There have been more than 130 aftershocks since the quake hit on Sunday morning. A tsunami warning was issued but was lifted after a few hours. It comes a week after another quake hit Lombok, popular with tourists who visit its beaches and hiking trails. That quake killed at least 16 people.

Source : BBC

Revelations in open court by the head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) about how a high ranking official in the Attorney General’s Department had interfered in a probe led by his men into the abductions of 11 Tamil youth in 2008, allegedly by Sri Lanka Navy personnel, sent shock-waves through the legal community this week.
 
In open court last Tuesday (31), CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekera alleged that the lawyer now appearing for the navy suspects arrested in connection with the case, also appeared to represent the suspects instead of the CID or the aggrieved parties even when he served as a senior official at the AG’s Department.
 
The CID Director’s intervention in court was related to an application made by President’s Counsel Shavindra Fernando and another Counsel for the suspects, Asith Siriwardane, to have their names removed from the CID B report of the investigation. The counsel told court that they had prejudiced by the inclusion of their names in the B report. The former Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Shavindra Fernando PC, who has since retired from the Attorney General’s Department, currently serves as Defence Counsel for several navy suspects in the same abduction case, now under magisterial inquiry at the Fort Magistrate’s Court.
 
CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekera provided a detailed description of facts stated in the CID B report presented in court, which claims that Shavindra Fernando PC who was then serving as a Deputy Solicitor General of the Attorney General’s Department, had attempted to impede the CID investigation into the abductions. The B report also noted that this alleged interference had been communicated to then Senior State Counsel Haripriya Jayasundera who was directing the CID investigation, and then Solicitor General Suhada Gamlath.
 
SSP Abeysekera also submitted to court a letter addressed to then IGP N.K. Illangakoon from former Solicitor General (SG) Suhada Gamlath, dated September 22, 2015. In his letter, SG Gamlath informs the IGP that CID investigators had been told to remove references to Shavindra Fernando, Haripriya Jayasundera and Suhada Gamlath in the B report filed by IP Nishantha Silva. “I have advised I.P. Nishantha Silva and DIG (CID) to have the said references in the B report deleted, however no such steps have been taken to date. You are hereby advised, to instruct your officers to meet me and get instructions as what steps need be taken to delete the references stated above. You may also advise them that the failure to carry out the said instructions would entail appropriate legal consequences,” the former Solicitor General’s letter states. The letter was copied to DIG CID and IP Silva.

The explosive revelations in the Fort Magistrate’s Court last Monday went largely unnoticed, but made ripples in the legal fraternity because the incident marked the first time that a senior official of the AG’s Department has been named in a police B report for having attempted to interfere with an investigation. The B reports were filed by CID OIC Nishantha Silva and Ranjith Munasinghe who are the main investigating officials in the case.

SSP Shani Abeysekera told court last Monday (30), that Fernando PC, while serving as Additional Solicitor General at the AG’s Department, had instructed the OIC of the CID and himself, to avoid questioning certain suspects in the abduction case. The CID Director told court that when Habeas Corpus petitions were filed by the relatives of the abducted boys in 2013, Fernando PC instructed him to get his investigators IP Nishantha Silva and Ranjith Munasinghe admitted in hospital or give them other inquiries in order to cause delays. Since then DSG Fernando was supervising the probe at the time, the CID had no choice but to follow his directives, the CID Director told court.
 
The CID Director also referred to a meeting at the Defence Ministry at which Fernando PC had been present but said he was not in a position to reveal details of that meeting to court.

Fernando PC, was present in the courtroom at the time rejected the allegation as totally false and that his name had been included in the B report with malicious intent. He said he had worked for the Attorney General’s Department for 30 years, and had been representing the AG in the Habeaus Corpus cases, since AG was cited as a respondent.
 
SSP Abeysekera also reported to Court that another lawyer for the navy suspects, Asith Siriwardane, had brought his client Navy Captain Jagath Ranasinghe to his office at the CID headquarters, and told him how Ranasinghe was a war hero, and should not be listed as a suspect in the case. Abeysekera, told court that while he acknowledged the navy officer’s contributions in battle, he had turned down the request. Counsel Siriwardane had used an old acquaintance with him from a previous case he was investigating, to secure the meeting, SSP Abeysekera explained.

Responding to the allegation, Attorney at Law Asith Siriwardane said that he had not made such a request from the CID Director and added that he had only visited SSP Abeysekera with his client in the capacity of his lawyer to convey the things his client had wanted to share with the CID director.
 
He added that the CID Director had no way of proving they met, but still acknowledged that a meeting had taken place.
 
Counsel Siriwardane also implied in court that CID officials were currently wielding immense power and were not looking into any of their complaints,but added that this could change. To which SSP Abeysekera responded that they were carrying out their duties in full knowledge of what the consequences would be, in the event power changed hands.
 
Responding to the proceedings, Magistrate Jayaratne noted that according to Section 120/2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, only details relevant to the case should be included in a police B report presented to court. However both Senior State Counsel Janaka Bandara and Counsel for the Petitioners Achala Seneviratne informed court that investigators have the right to include all details that might affect a case in their B report.
 
Section 120 of the Criminal Procedure Code states investigators must periodically report to court about the progress of an investigation and that progress includes any obstacle, obstruction they face in the investigation, the Senior State Counsel argued. If there was such influence exerted, the CID had every right to inform court, SSC Bandara added, arguing that the court had no jurisdiction to order removal or expunging of details included in a B Report.
The Magistrate agreed with this argument and the application to have their names removed from the B report by Fernando PC and Counsel Siriwardane proved unsuccessful.
 
The B report was originally filed by Nishantha Silva, who was by then promoted to OIC, on February 19, 2015 while the attempts to influence the investigation occurred in 2012-2013, Sunday Observer learns.
 
Investigations into the abductions of 11 youth began on June 10, 2009. The first five boys linked to the navy abduction case were taken from Dehiwala on September 17, 2008, but as time went on, other victims were also found and linked to the same navy abduction squad.

Ten suspects from the Sri Lanka Navy including former Navy Spokesman Commodore D.K.P. Dassanayake have been arrested in connection with the abduction of the 11 youth in 2008-2009. The Fort Magistrate has issued a red notice for the arrest of Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi alias Navy Sampath, after the CID informed court earlier this year that they suspected former Commander of the Navy Admiral Ravi Wijegunewardane had helped Navy Sampath to flee Sri Lanka.
 
Senior officials at the Attorney General’s Department speaking confidentially told that the CID investigators had been subjected to vicious personal attacks in the course of this controversial case, including in the media, alleging that they have been bought or influenced. The investigation spanned several years and was very complex and CID had done a painstaking job of collecting facts to build the case, despite the resistance and non-cooperation the agency had faced, the official noted. 
 
Source : Sunday Observer

The Euro­pean Council has extended the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist organisation by another six months in a decision, taken on July 30, under the European Union’s regulation on “specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism.”

The decision was taken after the Sri Lankan Embassy in Brussels had presented evidence from the past years up to the present that the LTTE threat continued to exist.

However with pro LTTE activists expected to challenge the decision the government has decided to brief the relevant parties regarding the LTTE in September and October 2018 to keep the ban in place.

Minister of Finance and Media Mangala Samaraweera said he was not aware of any proposal to increase the salaries of Parliamentarians and Ministers and he is against such a step.
 
Responding to journalists at a media briefing held at the Finance Ministry yesterday, Minister Samaraweera said he is against increasing any one's salary at this time.
 
"Not only for politicians, I am against raising salaries of any person at this time. This is not a time to give pay raises, I do not know about a salary increase for the ministers. We did not discuss such a proposal at the cabinet meeting," he said.
 
He said that such increases in salaries need the Treasury's approval and he would not approve the measure to go ahead with a pay raise for Parliamentarians and Ministers.

Source : Colombo Page