The Colombo Archbishop, while expressing his gratitude to the Channel 4 television network of Britain for the interest and trouble it took to focus attention worldwide on this great plot of the Easter Sunday attacks today, said no tangible and credible results might emerge from yet another Parliamentary Select Committee if it is only a matter of producing a report.
“In that light, appointing such a select committee will only lead to a waste of public funds and time and be an exercise in simply misleading the public. For this reason, we do not endorse such a strategy and reject that plan outright”, the archbishop said in a statement today.
Speaking at a press conference in Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith said that he has never asked any person, either public or private, to vote for former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa or then Presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa.
He urged the authorities concerned to hold a free, impartial, just, transparent, and broad-based investigation into what the Channel 4 Television Network revealed in its programmeme, the alleged plot behind that tragedy, all facts, and a study of the persons mentioned in its programmeme, especially with regard to their role in this mass murder. Investigations should be carried out on the findings outlined in the various commission reports already presented, and the recommendations stated there need to be fully implemented.
“This investigation should take place through an independent international investigation team, and that international team should be assisted by all those Sri Lankan officials of the CID whose services were originally sought by the government and who were transferred away from the investigations to other areas and posts by biassed political authorities, ,the statement said.
“Since these fresh investigations need to be independent, all those officials in the police and intelligence services coming under investigation on this matter and who hold high positions presently should be suspended forthwith.
The Archbishop said that any such officials named in the Channel 4 programme should move out of their present high positions in order to ensure the impartiality of the investigations.
