Messages from the Courtroom Killing

By Kassapa

If the events at Court No.5 on February 19 were scripted by a Hollywood thriller writer, he could not have done a better job. It had a movie-like quality. The killer entered the complex in a lawyer’s attire to escape detection, as did his female accomplice. As if to add a touch of sheer irony, the murder weapon was concealed in a copy of the Criminal Procedure Code!

It was the first event of this kind faced by the Jathika Jana Balavegaya (JJB) government and in many ways, its response was found wanting.

When an incident of this nature occurs, with all the elements of drama, tragedy and impunity mixed in them, the public want answers. How did a man who was transported from the Boossa prison with Special Task Force (STF) security, much more than that afforded to Cabinet ministers, come to be gunned down while in the witness box? Worse still, how come his assailant makes a getaway unscathed, while all those STF personnel were still present?

There are many lessons for the government to learn from this incident. It is hoped they are learnt and learnt fast. If not, it will have to pay a high price because the government’s ignorance and incompetence will begin to show.

Take for instance the ‘performance’ of Deputy Minister of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs Sunil Watagala. He may have thought he would be comfortable arriving at the scene as he is a lawyer but, when he was surrounded by posse of pressmen and women and questioned about the state of ‘national security’, he was clearly flustered and uncomfortable. He wanted to exit the scene as quickly as possible and unfortunately for him, that manifested in a call to his driver, addressing him as ‘donkey’. That video clip went viral and the JJB’s detractors posed the very valid question, does the JJB’s ministers call their comrades ‘donkeys’?

Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara was also present and fared much better. He allowed himself to be patted down for security reasons. When someone told the policeman doing so that this was a minister, Nanayakkara told him. ‘you do your job’. Speaking to the media, he was measured. This killing was a manifestation of a culture that has existed for some time but as the government of the day, the present regime had a responsibility to own, he said. That was as good an explanation as any about the events of the day, from the government.

Minister of Public Security Ananda Wijepala didn’t cover himself in glory though when he was to say that there was absolutely no threat to ‘national security’ and described the events as an ‘isolated incident’. Wijepala may or may not be right in saying there was no threat to national security because this was apparently the result of a clash between rival gangs but to say that it is an ‘isolated incident’ is to trivialise it in a dismissive manner. He has clearly been proved wrong since then with incidents occurring in Midddeniya and Kotahena in quick succession. Cabinet Spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa was grilled by the media about the latter but he was dumbfounded and tongue-tied, unable to offer any reasonable explanation.    

The killing maybe the end result of gangland war but the fact that it was allowed to occur in the country’s major court complex while court was in session, makes a mockery of the judicial process and is an affront to the entire premise of law and order sustaining democratic norms of the country, the very values the JJB pledged to uphold when they campaigned for power. To forget that now and minimise the impact of this event is at best naïve, at worst it hints at a level of arrogance that has not previously been associated with the JJB.   

The government’s information apparatus also got its facts wrong when it first released the identity of the assailant as ‘Mohamed Azam Sherifdeen’. However, it later emerged that his real name was Samindu Dilshan Piyumanga Kandanaarachchi. That could have been a costly error, given the racial connotations involved but fortunately the error was rectified soon.

While many have spoken on behalf of the government and expressed various views, the only explanation for why this brazen crime was allowed to occur was that STF personnel were not permitted to possess weapons within the courtroom. Apparently, this was a time-honoured tradition. It has since been announced that this will be reviewed, but even that announcement did not receive the publicity it deserved.

What was also perhaps lacking from the government was a comprehensive account of the incident, what led to it, what steps have been taken to minimise the risks of a repeat occurrence, the results of the investigations so far, the lessons learnt from the tragedy and most importantly, a statement taking some degree of responsibility for the events while noting that it is a culmination of the gang culture that has been fostered for decades by previous regimes. Ideally, such a statement could have been delivered by a person in authority such as the Prime Minister or the Cabinet Spokesman. A press briefing involving all stakeholders and addressing all issues would have been ideal.

Instead of being proactive in such a manner, what we saw was a reactive government: a minister running away from the media pursuing him and other ministers answering questions posed to them in an ad-hoc manner, often in anger, and trying to distance and dissociate themselves from the tragedy. It is high time that those in the government learn that they are no longer in the opposition: they are now the government and the buck often stops with them. To blame previous regimes is an act of cowardice and an indication that they are not willing or able to confront issues when they emerge.

While we hope that such an audacious murder will not happen again, it is a certainty that the government will be faced with crises from time to time over the next five years. If anything, the court room killing has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the JJB’s ‘disaster preparedness’ is at a very low ebb. Its leaders must address this shortcoming as quickly as it can, or else, the government itself will become a disaster.