Chase ends in surrender

Deshabandu Tennekoon, the suspended Inspector General of Police, surrendered to the Matara Magistrate last Wednesday after leading the force he once headed on a merry chase for some 20 days, resulting in a lot of egg on the face of the police. He did so after unsuccessfully moving Court of Appeal earlier in the week seeking a writ order to prevent his arrest. This was obviously a last ditch attempt which failed. No doubt fearing that he could not hide for ever, Tennekoon turned up at the court house early on Wednesday morning, reportedly in a Benz car although there is no confirmation of that, staying in the court room until his case was taken up later in the day.

Although we believe the police could have arrested him when he turned up in court, as is known to have been done in the past, that did not happen. Tennekoon would have no doubt been prepared for such an eventuality. The prosecutor went on record that the fugitive should have been in a holding cell rather than seated in the open court room. At the end of the day he was remanded till April 3 and taken away to the Angunukolapelessa jail under special escort by the prison authorities who have been directed to ensure his safety in custody. This is an obvious precaution given the suspect’s notoriety and it was not long ago that a suspect was shot dead as he stood on a courtroom dock. Also, many grudges are known to have been settled in jail in the past.

Deshabandu Tennekoon is not the only high profile fugitive who has recently evaded the long arm of the law. Readers will no doubt remember that the woman accomplice, disguised as a lawyer, who smuggled in the firearm used in the recent court room killing in a hollowed out copy of the Criminal Procedure Code, is not yet in custody although an attractive reward for finding her has been offered. Notably no such inducement was offered by law enforcers for the arrest of their fugitive chief. But a lot else has been done in searching his home where some 795 bottles of foreign liquor and 214 bottles of wine had been found. These salacious details were presented to parliament last week by Public Security Minister Ananda Wijeypala who is the political authority responsible for the police. Since we are now into a New Year and Christmas was only recently past, Tennekoon probably received these as gifts which are customary in this season particularly to those holding high office and others who can do favours. The minister, no doubt, derived much satisfaction in revealing these details to parliament just as much as his cabinet colleagues have relished exposing misdoings of predecessor governments during the ongoing committee stage on the 2025 budget debate.

It is not unusual for police to take family members of wanted suspects as hostages until the quarry is either arrested or surrenders. This was not done in Tennekoon’s case although his family had been questioned about his whereabouts. Also there have been other past instances of high profile wanted suspects evading arrest for much longer periods than the suspended IGP. One such was Rear Admiral Royce de Mel, a former commander of the then Royal Ceylon Navy, who was wanted in connection with the abortive 1962 coup d’etat. De Mel successfully evaded arrest for several weeks before he was surrendered to the specially created trial-at-bar that tried the accused by his counsel, GG Ponnambalam Q.C. Many years after de Mel’s death, details of where he hid in a remote plantation bungalow were published in the media.

While Tennekoon was in hiding, there were threats of confiscation of his property and punishment to those who helped him were made although it was not clear whether such measures were enforceable or not. The public will now have to await the unraveling of the usually prolonged legal process before being able to see where this matter will eventually end. But it is patently clear that Deshabndu Tennekoon’s was a rank bad appointment to the position of IGP. He had been found guilty of torture by the supreme court in December, 2023 in what was described as a “historic judgment” where it was held that he was “personally responsible” for acts of torture against a suspect in custody. Before this judgment there were other allegations of his being complicit in attacking peaceful protests and making death threats to journalists and much more.

Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe resisted appointing Tennekoon as IGP extending the tenure of his predecessor, CD Wickremeratne for three month periods several times before he caved into demands by a Tennekoon patron before finally making the appointment. But this also necessitated some sleight of hand at the Constitutional Council (CC) which had to approve the appointment. Then Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene counted the votes of two absent members of the CC as noes (rather than absent) against Tennekoon declared a tie and then registered his own casting vote to record approval.

This demonstrated that even the checks and balances safety mechanism of the CC has been aborted for a clearly bad appointment to be made. It is to be hoped that such unfortunate situations will not be allowed to arise in the future.