JVP National Organiser former MP Bimal Ratnayake addressing the press yesterday

By Saman Indrajith

Those who question the JVP how Mohammad Yusuf Ibrahim, a key suspect over the Easter Sunday bombings was on the JVP’s National List at the August 2105 parliamentary election, should first question the Mahinda Rajapaksa government why it paid salaries of 21 terror suspects, including Zahran Hashim, from 2010 to 2015, JVP National Organiser and former MP Bimal Ratnayake said yesterday.

Addressing the media at their Party Headquarters in Pelawatte, the former MP said: “It has been accepted in many forums now, Zahran and 21 others in his terror outfit were on the payroll of the government from 2010 to 2015. It was the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Those who want to record our statements on how Ibrahim Hajjiar became one of our national list candidates, should come to question us after questioning Mahinda Rajapaksa. Ibrahim Hajjiar was a businessman who had been awarded and felicitated by Mahinda Rajapaksa. Hajjiar became a National List candidate of the JVP. In addition, a large number of ministers of that government gave awards and accolades and honorary titles to Ibrahim Hajjiar. He had also been given a Justice of the Peace post covering the entire country. Those accolades and honorary titles and social recognition too made us place Ibrahim Hajjiar on the National List.”

The MP said that the presidential Commission of Inquiry on Easter Sunday had been in existence for a considerable time and the commission should have summoned the JVP leaders if it had wanted to know information on how and why Ibrahim was included in the national list for the general election 2015.

“There was no such inquiry or asking us for the reasons then, but now some ministers of the government go around the country telling the media that they want to question us on our links to Ibrahim. Let them come and question us but we hope that they would first question those who paid Zahran and his group.”