MR slams CID interrogation

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa speaking to reporters after being questioned by the CID yesterday 

– Pic by Nisal Baduge  

By Skandha Gunasekara

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday charged that the Government was exacting “political revenge” and that he had no recollection of phone calls linked to Keith Noyahr’s incident. 

Following a three-hour interrogation by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at his official residence in Wijerama Mawatha yesterday, the former President, while making a statement to the media, said that he could not remember any phone call by the then Minister and current Speaker of Parliament Karu Jayasuriya. 

“The CID agents said that Karu Jayasuriya had called me and asked if I released Keith Noyahr as a result of that phone call. I told them that I received numerous phone calls from various people and that I cannot remember if the then Minister Karu Jayasuriya had called me,” the he told the media.

The former President said that he had inquired from the CID if it had been wrong to release Noyahr. 

Furthermore, the Minister said the questioning by the CID was yet another effort by the incumbent Government to carry out political revenge. 

“These are all for political reasons. These days, the Government resorts to various political tactics. This is just another element of their political revenge. The Government thinks that the same would not happen to them.”

Five Criminal Investigation Division officials arrived at the former President’s official residence in Wijerama Mawatha around 11.30 a.m. yesterday and carried questioning for roughly three hours. 

According to findings of the CID investigations, the then Minister Karu Jayasuriya had called the then President Rajapaksa and pleaded with the latter to spare Keith Noyahr’s life and set him free. Thereafter, the then President had called his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was the Defence Secretary at the time, after which Noyahr had been released. 

Keith Noyahr was abducted and assaulted in 2008 in Dehiwala while working for a newspaper.