Lawyers undergoing security checks due to courtroom killing: No formal arrangements yet

Both assassin and accomplice posed as Attorneys-at-Law

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Outgoing President of the Bar Association, Anura Maddegoda, PC, said yesterday that formal arrangements hadn’t been put in place yet to subject lawyers to security checks.

Maddegoda emphasised the mportance of ensuring security of everyone within court premises.

The President’s Counsel said so in response to The Island query whether the BASL was agreeable to the Acting IGP Priyantha Weerasooriya’s suggestion that lawyers, too, should be subjected to security checks.

Weerasooriya, himself an Attorney-at-Law was speaking to the media outside the Hulftsdorp court complex on 19 February, morning, soon after an ex-soldier shot dead underworld kingpin Sanjeewa Samararatne, alias Ganemulle Sanjeewa, in courtroom 05 of the court complex.

Maddegoda took over the BASL leadership on 26 Sept., 2024, following the resignation of Kaushalya Navaratne, PC, over the JICA project scandal.

Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara also dealt with the need for security checks on lawyers in the wake of the Hulftsdorp assassin, later identified as a legally discharged soldier, who entered the courtroom disguised as a lawyer.

Newly elected BASL President Rajeewa Amarasuriya politely declined to comment on the issue before formally taking over the top post.

The suspected accomplice of Sanjeewa’s killer, Ishara Sewwandi, a resident of Katuwellegama, Negombo, who allegedly smuggled in the weapon used by the assassin, is also believed to have been dressed like an Attorney-at-Law. She is still at large.

There had been three previous killings in courtrooms, two of them at the Attanagalle Magistrate court in Nov., 1991. The dead were a Sub Inspector of Police who had been charged with killing 12 persons at Wavulkelle in Feb., 1990, and his father-in-law. The third killing took place in January 2004 when notorious gangster Dhammika Amarasinghe was gunned down by an Army deserter.

Dhammika Amarasinghe’s killer posed as a law student.