Sri Lanka Army, on the directions of the Ministry of Defence, has declared a General Amnesty for the period of one month starting from 20 April to 20 May 2024 to all Army absentees, enabling them to receive an official discharge from their service. During the officially declared general amnesty period, Army absentees have been provided with the opportunity to legally discharge from the Army, in coordination with their respective Regimental Centers.

This general amnesty is applicable to all Officers/ Other Ranks who have been Absent Without Leave (AWOL) prior to 02 April 2024. All Officers and Other Ranks who have been AWOL must obtain clearance after reporting to their respective Regimental Centres with the following documents, and the basic administrative process will be completed within 72 hours for a legal discharge from the Army:

a.Army ID (or a copy of a recent police complaint report if Army ID is not available).

b.A copy of the national identity card or driving license.

c.A photocopy of the bank account book where the salary and allowances have been credited.

d.A photocopy of the last pay slip (if available).

During this general amnesty period, Army personnel who have not committed any illegal activities apart from AWOL and are currently overseas without legal discharge from the Army, also eligible for legal discharge from the Army. They can initiate this process by contacting their respective Regimental Centres without  reporting physically.

AG’s appeal against granting bail to accused in SLPP MP’s killing:

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Attorney General Sanjay Rajaratnam, PC, has appealed to the Supreme Court against the granting of bail to 41 accused in the killing of Polonnaruwa District SLPP MP Amarakeethi Athukorala and his Personal Security Officer (PSO) Jayantha Gunawardena on 09 May 2022, at Nittambuwa.

The AG’s appeal has been fixed for argument on 09 July, 2024, before a bench comprising five Judges, presided by Justice P. Surasena, the AG’s Department has informed Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakse, PC.

The AG’s Department has said so after Minister Rajapakse called for a report in respect of our news report, headlined ‘SLPP MP’s violent death during Aragalaya: Govt should be ashamed of delay in serving justice – Head of National Security Sectoral Oversight Committee‘ published on the front page of The Island edition of April 16.

The Justice Minister has been informed that in spite of strong objections by the AG to release the accused on bail at the time of serving of indictments and to have a day-to-day trial, the Trial-at-Bar released the accused on bail on the grounds that they had been in remand custody for over one year.

The AG has declared that his Department felt aggrieved by the decision of the Trail-at-Bar to release the accused on bail.

MP Atukorale was on his way back home after attending a Temple Trees meeting, chaired by then Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, when a mob intercepted his car in the Nittambuwa town. The armed police bodyguard was also killed.

According to the AG’s Department, the initial investigations conducted by the Nittambuwa Police and subsequently taken over by the Homicide Unit of the CID during C.D. Wickremeratne’s tenure as the IGP. Having concluded the investigation, the Homicide Unit of the CID has submitted the relevant material to the AG and sought his advice.

Justice Minister Rajapakse told The Island that he immediately sought clarification from the AG after the latest report was brought to his notice.

Having perused the material submitted by the CID, the AG has decided to move for a Trail-at-Bar, according to the note received by the Justice Minister. The AG dispatched the indictment against 41 accused to the High Court of Gampaha before requesting Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya, PC, in terms of 450 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code on May 09, 2023 to consider appointing a Trial-at-Bar to hear the case.

The Chief Justice has given the go ahead by nominating three High Court Judges, Sahan Mapa Bandara, Rashmi Singappulli and. Ruwan Pathirana to have a Trail-at-Bar sitting at Gampaha.

The indictments which were preferred against the 41 accused contained 14 charges, including two counts of murder, around 350 witnesses and 400 productions.

While the AG’s appeal regarding the bail order is pending before the Supreme Court, the Trail-at-Bar commenced and is in progress, the Justice Minister said, referring to the note he received from the AG. The prosecution has concluded the evidence of two witnesses who had played a key role in the course of the investigations. The Court has been informed that their next witness would be Nuwan Sandagiri, the representative of the Government Analyst’s Department who had done the analysis pertaining to the Fascial Recognition of the accused and the digital evidence.

The High Court trial will resume on April 25, 2024, and will continue on Thursday afternoons and Fridays of every week.

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) has urged the government to maintain transparency in the ongoing debt restructuring process as national elections are around the corner and that the next government will have to honour the conditions agreed upon by the incumbent administration.

The SJB said so soon after the government of Sri Lanka rejected international bondholders’ proposal in respect of restructuring more than $12 billion in debt.

Some of the proposal’s “baseline” assessments and a lack of a contingency option in the case of continued economic weakness were the two main reasons the deal was not agreed, the government said in a statement.

The following is the text of statement issued by Dr. Harsha de Silva, MP, on behalf of the SJB: “These initial comments are based on the first reading of the press release by the Finance Ministry moments ago.

“We reserve the right to make additional comments upon in depth study of the proposals in the attachments.

“At the outset, we note with disappointment that there has been absolutely no transparency in the government’s debt restructuring process even though we had requested for the same. In fact I personally requested a meeting with the relevant stakeholders, both as the economics spokesperson for the main Opposition SJB, and as the Chairman of the COPF. That opportunity was not provided, instead a meeting with government officials was arranged to discuss the IMF programme which we had no reason to attend as we anyway meet the delegation during their visits and exchange views on the same.

“From the media statement it is obvious that the government has failed to strike a deal favourable to the people of

Sri Lanka. We acknowledge however, that it is better to withdraw from the discussions than to agree to a bad deal.

“Having said that, the statement by the President’s Chief of Staff Sagala Ratnayaka that the two sides agreed on two of the four issues is not accurate when the note categorically states that no agreement had been reached, only that they ‘came closer to meeting of minds’ if a significant additional payment was made and even then, contingent upon the government side agreeing to the bondholders remaining conditions.

It is clear that the participating bond holders do not want to move away from the original macro linked bond (MLB) structure they proposed based on the performance of the Sri Lanka economy to be measured on their much higher ‘alternative baseline’ as opposed to that of the IMF. The main problem with this approach from the point of view of Sri Lanka is with their proposed structure of sharing the upside. It is not acceptable given the pain already incurred and will be incurred for decades to come by domestic creditors forced upon by the domestic debt restructure. It is now clear the alternative restructuring proposal by the government consisting of a mix of plain vanilla and MLB has been rejected by the bond holders.

“We do understand the need for some type of value recovery instrument (VRI) that could be a component of the final restructured series, but we are of the opinion that to link the same to every bond takes away the freedom of a future government to manage the nation’s liabilities in the most beneficial way for Sri Lanka. It is possible to discuss the VRI structure that is detachable from the main instrument.

“We are happy to note the inclusion of a discussion on a possible governance linked bond (GLB) structure and would be interested in discussing how that can be worked into a possible instrument to be agreed upon.

“We urge the government to be much more transparent in this restructuring process given that elections are around the corner and that the next government and those to come will be held responsible to honor the conditions agreed upon by this government in its final months. We are fully aware that any unilateral suspension of meeting any of the agreed payments would mean a second default which would be an absolute disaster.”