Monk praises Gota for releasing SLA soldier from death row, celebrates genocidaire soldier as “hero”

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 March 2020, 23:38 GMT]
While all attention remains focused on the lethal Corona pandemic, SL President Gotabaya has chosen to silently release a Sinhala soldier, Sunil Ratnayake, who was sentenced to death in 2015 for one of the brutal massacres committed on Eezham Tamils. In a genocidal act, eight Tamil civilians, including a five-year-old child and two teenagers, were massacred by Ratnayake and five other soldiers at Mirusuvil in Jaffna on 19 December 2000. Ratnayake, a non-commissioned officer of the SL Army, was the only soldier to be punished by the court. The case was put off several times to facilitate escape routes to commissioned rank officers, except Ratnayake, whom the system intended to release at a later opportunity, as it has happened now, Tamil rights activists in Jaffna commented. In the meantime an extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk celebrated the release posting a video comment on Facebook.

Mẹḍillē Paññālōka (මැඩිල්ලේ පඤ්ඤාලෝක) thero, who claims to be the convener of the extremist group Siňhalē Jātika Saňvidhānaya (සිංහලේ ජාතික සංවිධානය), was thanking Gotabaya Rajapaksa and SLA Commander Kamal Gunaratne for releasing Ratnayake (watch the video released by the monk in YouTube).


[Source: Hiru News]

The monk was prominently featured by Sinhala-language online media in the coverage of the news of Ratnayake's release on Thursday. Ratnayake was thanking the monks for campaigning for his release.



The extremist monk, who was promoting Sinhala Buddhist colonisation of Jaffna at Naavatkuzhi during the previous regime of Rajapaksa, was supporting Gotabaya Rajapaksa during the presidential election.

The UN Human Rights Council, which was influenced by the international geopolitics of Obama Administration, absolved the unitary state of Sri Lanka of genocidal crimes through providing escape routes for five years through the so-called US-sponsored “consensus” resolution passed at the UNHRC.

Earlier this month, the regime of Gotabaya Rajapaksa opted out of the token commitments of the co-sponsored UN resolution, which was made by the previous government for the sake of UN absolving the genocidal crimes of the SL State.

The very few “culprits” of a few sample crims described as “emblematic” cases were subjected to prosecution in the SL courts.

Now, Mr Gotabaya has released one such soldier from the “token” death sentence sending him back into the Sinhala society and his family.

The killer was given a “hero welcome” by the extremist Sinhala-Buddhist sections in the social media. The Hero has come home (වීරයා ගෙදර ඇවිත්), they said.

The genocidal act committed by the Sinhala soldiers was only one of more than 150 documented massacres by the genocidal military of Colombo during the times of war before the Norway-brokered peace process and the Ceasefire in 2002.

The mass grave where the eight victims had been buried was discovered after initial investigations on 25 December 2000.

Postmortem report established that the killers had slit the throats of the victims with sharp knives and chopped off the arms and legs of them.

The skin of the 5-year-old child had been peeled off.

All the victims were between the ages of 5 and 41, and only two were found with underwear. The rest of the bodies were naked.

Only a 20-year-old victim, Maheswaran Ponnuthurai, had managed to escape from the killers while he was being tortured.



Mr Maheswaran became the prime witness in the case identifying the culprits of the notorious ‘Deep Penetration Unit’ of the SL Army.

Maheswaran, identified five of the six Sinhala soldiers, including a Lieutenant and two Lance Corporals. The sixth one was captain rank officer, whom the SL Police was protecting from appearing in the identification parade.

Finally, sixteen Sri Lankan soldiers, including two officers, were either arrested or questioned on the orders of District Judge Premashankar in January 2001.

The inquiry was taken up by a three-member trial-at-bar, comprising of High Court Judges I.M. Imam (Chairman), Sarath Ambepitya and Kumar Ekaratna, on 11 February 2003 during the peace process.

SL Army’s Staff Sergeant R.M. Sunil Ratnayake, Second Lieutenant R.W.Senaka Munasinghe, T.M. Jayaratne, S.A.Pushpa Saman Kumara and Gamini Munasinghe were indicted.

Related Articles:
27.06.07   Court fixes inquiry into Mirusuvil massacre case
17.02.03   Mirusuvil massacre inquiry put off
13.02.03   Sole survivor in Mirusuvil massacre identifies army accused
11.02.03   'Mirusuvil massacre a crime against humanity' -State Counsel
04.01.01   Two more suspects identified in Mirusivil
03.01.01   Witness picks out murder accused
31.12.00   Mirusuvil massacre accused to stand in identification parade
27.12.00   Massacre victims died of stab wounds - Medical Officer
25.12.00   Bodies of missing civilians found


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