Former Editor Upali Tennekoon identifies Army officer who assaulted him

Ending a 7-year silence the former Editor of the ‘Rivira’, veteran journalist Upali Tennekoon and his wife yesterday identified the person who attacked him in January 2009 giving a major breakthrough to one of the most gory attacks on free media.

The person identified in a parade before Gampaha Acting Magistrate Mahesh Herath was former staff sergeant Prem Ananda Udalagama.

Tennekoon, a fearless editor, was on 23 January 2009 assaulted at Imbulgoda in Gampaha by a then unknown group.

He was driving to his office when four men on motorcycles stopped him, smashed in his car windows, and proceeded to beat him and his wife with metal bars. Thereafter Upali fled the country for safety.

His return from self-imposed exile this week was specifically to identify the attackers, a development hailed by free media and good governance activists.

Incidentally, Udalagama is currently in remand in connection with the brutal killing of one of Sri Lanka’s eminent journalists the Sunday Leader Chief Editor Lasantha Wickremaratunge.

Lasantha was murdered 8 January 2009, the same month Tennekoon was attacked, in a similar manner. 

Following the attack, Tennekoon’s wife received phone threats asking that Tennekoon resign from journalism, or face death. 

Yesterday however the Attorneys appearing for Udalagama objected to the identification parade saying their client’s photographs had appeared in social media websites and in newspapers.

After the suspect was identified he was remanded till 29 August in the assault case. 

The CID Gang Robberies Investigation Unit OIC Inspector Nishantha Silva led the prosecution while Attorneys Yuran Liyanage and Chinthaka Samarasinghe appeared for the suspect