Finding Prageeth

Prageeth Eknaligoda is one of just tens of thousands of citizens subjected to enforced disappearance or extrajudicial killing by the Sri Lankan State. Yet, he remains the most emblematic case of State impunity and failure of the criminal justice system to bring those responsible to justice. Despite the numerous investigations and court cases into the enforced disappearance of Eknaligoda, those responsible enjoy immunity from justice as they are protected by the State, irrespective of who is in power and which Government is in office.

As the 14th anniversary of the enforced disappearance of journalist Eknaligoda is marked this year, his spouse and activist Sandya continues to demand justice for him. He was ‘disappeared’ a few days before the 2010 Presidential election. Later investigations conducted by the CID had revealed that he had been abducted by a military intelligence unit of the Sri Lanka Army and held at the Giritale military camp. There has been interference in the investigation at every level. For years, the military blocked the CID investigations into the crime, and after the election of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019 many witnesses recanted confessions made before magistrates. Military intelligence personnel and their commanding officers accused of the crime were exonerated by a Presidential Commission of Inquiry mandated by Rajapaksa to investigate political victimisation. Police detectives including the head of the CID Shani Abeysekara have faced reprisals, including incarceration.

Three presidential commissions of inquiry established in the 1990s recorded over 46,000 enforced disappearances during the late 1980s. At least 10,000 youth are estimated to have been either extra-judicially killed or disappeared in 1971 during the first JVP insurrection. A Presidential Commission of Inquiry established by President Mahinda Rajapaksa recorded over 23,000 enforced disappearances in the Northern and Eastern provinces. The fact that Sri Lanka has a culture of impunity concerning such crimes is an understatement. This is a pathetic record for any country, let alone one claiming to be a functional democracy.

According to international law, as long as a person remains missing, the crime of enforced disappearance is ongoing. Therefore, the cases of these tens of thousands of individuals who have been subjected to enforced disappearance are ongoing cases and no number of years passed is going to end the ongoing crime. In 2016 the State acceded to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED Act of 2016) and has now accepted enforced disappearance as an autonomous crime. Through this act the State also accepts that families of victims have a right to not only find their loved ones, even remains of them if they are dead, but also to know the circumstances of their deaths. Unfortunately, the Attorney General has not used the provisions of the CED act in a single case nor has it successfully prosecuted a single case of enforced disappearance.

Despite establishing an Office on Missing Persons and more recently a ‘Truth’ commission they remain impotent to addressing outstanding accountability issues. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s personal lawyer remains the country’s foreign minister and the minister who publicly proclaimed that he will not allow any judicial action against Rajapaksa remains the minister of justice. These individuals are now supposedly in charge of the truth and accountability of processes in the country.

It is apparent that Prageeth Eknaligoda or tens of thousands of civilians who were victims of State violence will never get justice within the failed criminal justice system in Sri Lanka. It is incumbent upon every citizen to be invested in justice for Prageeth Eknaligoda and support Sandya and hundreds of thousands of other families of victims to seek justice elsewhere and bring the culprits of these heinous crimes to justice.