COLOMBO, June 8: A group of Sri Lankan opposition leaders on Monday began a protest in support of detained former head of the state intelligence service Suresh Sallay.
Sallay was admitted to the National Hospital last night due to his resorting to a fast unto death, alleging degrading treatment under detention since late February.
His hospital transfer came after a letter addressed to the inspector general of police by his wife Manori Sallay alleged that her husband was subjected to “torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.
“We want to send a message to the government that the well-being of Sallay is a priority as a former war hero. His torturing must stop,” Wimal Weerawansa, a former minister and the leader of the National Freedom Front, told reporters as they began their protest opposite the main Colombo railway station.
“We won’t stop until he receives better treatment under detention,” Weerawansa said.
Sallay was arrested on February 25 to question him in a bid to track down the mastermind of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings, which killed 270 people, including 11 Indians, at churches and five-star hotels in Colombo.
Sallay was serving in a diplomatic position overseas when the attacks took place. A retired Major General, he was a key state intelligence official under the Mahinda Rajapaksa government before 2015.
He was accused of maintaining links with the Islamic extremist activists who carried out the attack.
Manori Sallay, in another letter to the Director CID on Monday, said she and her son were only allowed to see her husband from a distance in the hospital.
She urged that his attorneys be allowed to visit him at his bedside.
The government of Maithripala Sirisena was accused of inaction despite intelligence being shared by India on the impending attack.
The current National People’s Power (NPP) government, in late 2024, reopened the Easter Sunday investigations, claiming that political influence had led to its cover-up. (PTI)
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