-By A Special Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News - 15.Oct.2025, 6.25 AM) For years, the “White Flag case” has lingered like a ghost over Sri Lanka’s modern political history — a mixture of vengeance, secrecy, and betrayal. It was the case that silenced the nation’s most decorated soldier. It was also the case that raised uncomfortable questions about whether Sri Lanka’s courts became a theatre for political revenge.
Now, nearly 15 years later, new leaked documents and insider testimonies suggest that the entire prosecution of Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka — once hailed as the war hero who defeated the LTTE — may have been built on fabricated evidence, manipulated witnesses, and political choreography directed from the highest offices of power.
At the centre of this dark intrigue lies a question that refuses to fade:
And more pointedly — was Ali Sabri, the then-legal advisor to Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, involved in preparing or facilitating the legal manoeuvres that led to Fonseka’s imprisonment?
The entire saga began with a Sunday newspaper interview.
In December 2009, journalist Frederica Jansz, then editor of The Sunday Leader, published an explosive story claiming that Field Marshal Fonseka had admitted that surrendering LTTE cadres were executed on the direct orders of Gotabaya Rajapaksa during the final hours of the civil war.
The article ignited a political firestorm. The Rajapaksa government — then still basking in the glow of military victory — seized upon it as evidence that Fonseka had committed treason. The former Army Commander, who only months earlier had contested Mahinda Rajapaksa in the presidential election, was painted as a liar and a traitor.
But from the start, Fonseka denied the claim.
He maintained that the Sunday Leader had twisted his words, merging two separate interviews with two different journalists into a single, damning quote. According to Fonseka, he had never said that Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered the execution of surrendering LTTE cadres — he had merely repeated questions posed by others in earlier press briefings.
Nevertheless, the Rajapaksa administration moved swiftly. Within weeks, a special High Court trial-at-bar was convened. Frederica Jansz’s notebook — containing five handwritten pages allegedly recording the interview — was produced as evidence. Those five pages would determine the fate of Sri Lanka’s most famous general.
The trial was presided over by a three-judge bench of the Colombo High Court, headed by Justice Deepali Wijesundera, a figure widely regarded as close to the Rajapaksa family.
The proceedings unfolded under a suffocating political atmosphere. The Attorney General’s Department, then under the shadow of the Defence Ministry, aggressively pursued Fonseka’s conviction. Government-controlled media portrayed him as a national threat.
On November 18, 2011, Fonseka was convicted under Section 120 of the Penal Code — for “propagating false statements likely to cause disaffection among the public” — and sentenced to three years imprisonment.
The verdict shocked many. To his supporters, it was nothing less than a judicial assassination. The man who had led the army to victory against the LTTE had been destroyed not by the enemy on the battlefield, but by the pen and the courtroom gavel of his political rivals.
But now, with the benefit of hindsight — and newly leaked material circulating among investigative circles — doubts have deepened about the credibility of the evidence used against Fonseka.
Sources close to Lanka e-News, which first published excerpts from internal memos related to the case, claim that Frederica Jansz’s notes were “edited and reconstructed” before submission to the court. A confidential affidavit allegedly filed by a former Sunday Leader staffer suggests that several pages of her notebook were missing before the trial, only to “reappear” later in a different format.
Even more troubling, two versions of the interview transcript appear to have circulated: one used by the prosecution and another in the newspaper’s archives. In one version, the key line attributing the “execution order” to Gotabaya Rajapaksa appears word-for-word; in the other, it is absent.
Could it be that the “evidence” that imprisoned Sri Lanka’s most decorated soldier was doctored?
To understand how such a case could have unfolded, one must look at the network of influence surrounding the Defence Ministry in 2009–2011.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, then Defence Secretary, was one of the most powerful unelected officials in Sri Lanka. His legal team — led by a young and rising lawyer named Ali Sabri (now a destitude , ignored politician and former Justice Minister) — acted as both shield and sword in the administration’s legal battles.
Leaked Defence Ministry correspondence from that period, now circulating among political insiders, reportedly shows legal advisors drafting responses to media controversies involving the military’s conduct. Among these were early internal memos addressing the Sunday Leader interview controversy — memos that mention “possible use of legal means” to “discipline” those defaming the Defence establishment.
While no direct documentary link yet proves that Sabri personally fabricated or manipulated evidence, the pattern of coordination between the Defence Ministry’s legal wing and the Attorney General’s Department raises significant ethical questions.
Was the prosecution of Sarath Fonseka a genuine defence of national honour — or a carefully orchestrated political takedown, disguised as a court case?
To appreciate the context, we must revisit the chaotic final days of the Sri Lankan civil war in May 2009.
As the LTTE leadership was collapsing, intermediaries — including Norwegian diplomat Erik Solhiem and then-Minister Basil Rajapaksha — were reportedly negotiating surrender arrangements for key Tiger leaders. Multiple witnesses confirm that there were communications between both sides regarding safe passage under white flags.
What happened next remains one of the darkest mysteries of the conflict.
Several LTTE political officers and family members who attempted to surrender under white flags disappeared. Their bodies were never recovered. The government has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
In the months after the war, whispers within the military suggested that orders to “finish off” surrendering cadres had come from the top. But those whispers were never recorded — until The Sunday Leader printed its infamous article quoting Sarath Fonseka.
In reality, according to sources close to Fonseka, the statement he made referred not to orders from Gotabaya Rajapaksa, but to comments allegedly made by Brigadier Shavendra Silva in the presence of foreign journalits. “It was an offhand remark,” one retired colonel told us. “Fonseka merely mentioned that there were rumours of such orders. He never claimed personal knowledge.”
That nuance — the difference between reporting a rumour and making an accusation — became the knife that cut down his career.
The Lanka e-News revelations claim that the handwritten evidence used at trial was reconstructed under the supervision of senior government lawyers. According to one anonymous affidavit, portions of Frederica Jansz’s notebook were “cut and pasted” from earlier drafts, while other segments were inserted after the date of the original interview.
If true, this would represent a grave perversion of justice — the kind of state-sponsored evidence fabrication associated with authoritarian regimes, not democracies.
Frederica Jansz herself, years later, admitted in interviews that she had come under “tremendous pressure” to publish the story. She hinted that she had received calls from “high-ranking Defence officials” warning her not to withhold the piece. She has since left Sri Lanka and now lives overseas.
Did she fabricate the story herself? Or was she coerced into becoming the messenger for a political vendetta?
This brings us back to the most sensitive question of all: what was the role, if any, of Ali Sabri — the then-legal advisor to Gotabaya Rajapaksa?
During the trial, Sabri was not a public figure. He was known primarily as Gotabaya’s private legal consultant and an influential figure in Colombo’s legal circles. Several of the Defence Ministry’s legal actions during that era, including defamation suits and disciplinary interventions, reportedly passed through his desk.
An internal Defence Ministry memo, dated early 2010 and now circulating among former officials, allegedly references “consultation with legal advisor A.S. on interview evidence.” While it does not directly name Fonseka, the timing coincides precisely with the Sunday Leader controversy.
If authenticated, this memo could point to an early-stage legal strategy discussion about how to prosecute the case — a discussion that would have involved the Defence Ministry, the Attorney General’s Department, and the very legal team that would later defend Gotabaya Rajapaksa in court.
So far, Sabri has never been formally questioned regarding his potential involvement. But calls are now mounting for the NPP Government to open an independent inquiry into whether state legal advisors — including Sabri — were complicit in manipulating or fabricating evidence against Fonseka.
The rise of the National People’s Power (NPP) government has reignited public hope that long-buried political scandals may finally be re-examined. Among them, none looms larger than the White Flag case — not only because it targeted a national hero, but because it symbolised the weaponisation of justice for political ends.
If the NPP administration is serious about cleansing Sri Lanka’s institutions, it cannot avoid reopening the Fonseka case. A forensic review of the trial record, including handwriting analysis of Frederica Jansz’s notes, could reveal whether the evidence was tampered with. Modern digital analysis could trace alterations in ink, sequence, and date stamps.
Moreover, the government could summon Ali Sabri and other former Defence Ministry legal officers for testimony under oath — not as an act of persecution, but as an act of transparency.
As one senior retired judge told this writer:
“The issue is not only whether Fonseka was guilty or innocent. The issue is whether the entire legal system was hijacked for political revenge. If that happened once, it can happen again.”
Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, has spoken little about his prison years. Those close to him say he carries the scars — both emotional and physical — of betrayal by the very state he served.
During his incarceration, he was denied adequate medical care and held in conditions described by human rights groups as “degrading.” His conviction disqualified him from Parliament and stripped him of his military titles — though these were later restored.
In private, Fonseka has told confidants that he still possesses “records” from the final days of the war — including communications between military officers and political figures. Whether these records contain evidence of the alleged surrender orders remains unknown. But his warning is clear:
“One day, the truth will come out. And when it does, many will run.”
The White Flag case remains a wound on Sri Lanka’s conscience.
It represents not only the persecution of an individual but the corruption of an entire legal process. The Rajapaksa era thrived on the myth of patriotism while crushing dissent. Lawyers, journalists, and judges were drawn into a vortex of political control.
If the current government wishes to rebuild faith in justice, it must confront this past honestly. That means investigating everyone involved — from the editors who published doctored notes to the lawyers who drafted politically driven prosecutions.
And yes, that includes asking whether Ali Sabri, as Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s legal advisor, played any part — directly or indirectly — in shaping the case against Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka.
History has an unkind habit of repeating itself when lies remain unchallenged. The White Flag case was never about surrendering Tigers. It was about surrendering justice itself.
A war hero was made a prisoner; a journalist was made a pawn; and a nation was made a witness to its own moral decay.
Now, as new evidence surfaces and old players return to the spotlight, Sri Lanka stands at a crossroads once again.
Will the truth be buried under more political whitewash — or will it finally fly under the White Flag of truth?
Until the day that happens, the question remains unanswered, haunting every corridor of power:
Who really set up Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka?
-By A Special Correspondent
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by (2025-10-15 00:56:46)
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