Krishanthy case accused to turn witness

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 June 2004, 17:38 GMT]
Mr.Rajapakse, one of the accused who was sentenced to death in the Krishanthy Kumarasamy rape and murder case and now kept in prison in the South has appealed to the Jaffna High Court through his lawyer to cite him as a witness instead of respondent in the 12 Habeas Corpus applications which are pending in court for inquiry, legal sources said.

Mr.Rajapakse was serving in Chemmani area in Jaffna town as a junior officer of the Sri Lanka Army during 1996 when hundreds of Tamil youths disappeared after the indiscriminate arrests by the Sri Lanka Army in Ariyalai and other suburbs in the Jaffna municipal limit, legal sources said.

42 Habeas Corpus applications filed by some parents of the disappeared Tamil youths in the first quarter of 2004 have been pending in the Jaffna High Court for inquiry. Mr.Rajapakse has been cited as first respondent in 12 of the 42 HC applications, legal sources said.

Now Mr.Rajapakse has told his lawyer to make an application to summon him as a witness in the HC applications instead of respondent, legal sources said. Other respondents in these cases include the SLA Commander Lionel Balagalle and the Attorney General, sources said.

Mr.Rajapakse has told court through his lawyer that he would be able to identify more sites where bodies of disappeared persons were buried and also he would be able to name the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officers who had been responsible for those killings if he is cited as a witness, legal sources said.

Mr.Rajapakse soon after he was sentenced to death in the Krishanthy rape and murder case made a statement in the court that he could identify some sites where disappeared youths were buried. Later he was taken to sites by the authorities. Consequently officials concerned recovered human remains from some of those sites identified by Mr.Rajapakse.