(Lanka-e-News -17 March.2026, 6.00 PM) A huge myth is currently being built around the former Director of the State Intelligence Service, retired Major General Tuan Suresh Saleh, who is in the custody of the Criminal Investigation Department, and he is also being transformed into a huge myth. It is our observation that the conscious process of turning Suresh Saleh into a myth in this way is none other than the fear of a large number of people regarding the possibility of the conspiracy suspected of being behind the Easter Sunday attacks being revealed.
Dismantling the myth of Suresh Saleh piece by piece, uncovering the truth behind it, and demolishing the false statues is an extremely important step not only for the Easter Sunday attacks but for the entire justice process that has been denied in this country.
This is because Suresh Saleh is the biggest and most powerful figure in the great ‘war hero’ myth that has permeated almost every effort to bring justice to crimes in Sri Lanka, especially those committed with state intervention.
It is not wrong to consider the revelation that behind this ‘greatest and strongest’ lies a vast collection of exaggerated and factually misleading myths as a milestone in Sri Lanka’s journey to justice. We see the investigation of the veracity of several statements made by his lawyer to mislead the court when he was produced before the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court on the 11th as a timely step towards challenging this vast myth.
Despite two DNA test reports revealing that Sarah Jasmine, the controversial woman named in the Easter Sunday attack, was not among the victims of the Saindamaradu blast, the CID reported to the court that day that investigations revealed that Suresh Salle had pressured former IGP C.D. Wickramaratne, former Deputy IGP of the CID Prasad Ranasinghe and former CID Director Nishantha Zoysa to conduct another DNA test.
CID reports also indicate that Suresh Salle took this influence to its peak by getting the President to exert this influence in the Security Council. Former DIG Prasad Ranasinghe has stated in his statement that he could not bear the pressure exerted by Suresh Salle and developed a heart condition, and even had to undergo open heart surgery.
When the CID revealed these facts before the court, President's Counsel Anuja Premaratne, who appeared for Suresh Sale, asked how his client, who was the head of the State Intelligence Service, could influence the IGP and a Deputy IGP at the Security Council. The lawyer, who questioned whether the officers were wearing coats, said this was a matter of shame and added that the State Intelligence Service falls under the IGP. We have to ask whether Anuja Premaratne is telling this story, not wearing a coat, but even wearing trousers, because what he is saying is completely false in terms of facts.
If, before making such a statement in court, he had at least come and inquired as to who appointed his client to the last and most powerful position in the military, and under whom the institution he headed was directly controlled, the stain would not have been so bad not only on Lawyer Pemaratne's coat but also on his trousers.
The State Intelligence Service (SIS) is not under the Inspector General of Police. It is an institution under the Minister of Défense. Since the establishment of the executive presidential system, the Ministry of Defence has been under the President for the longest time. Accordingly, the State Intelligence Service, which was under President Sirisena at the time of the Easter Sunday attacks, was under President Gotabaya when Saleh became its director. Gotabaya also appointed Salle, a client of Premaratne, to the position shortly after Gotabaya assumed the presidency, in early December 2019.
Until Salle’s appointment, it was customary for a senior police officer to be appointed as the Director of the State Intelligence Service, but Salle, a client of Premaratne, is breaking that tradition and becoming the first director to be appointed to the agency from outside the police service. Accordingly, if anything, Salle’s appointment further distanced the IGP from the State Intelligence Service.
The learned President's Counsel will be able to understand that the State Intelligence Service is an institution that is solely under the Minister of Defence, that is, the President, and that its head or director operates solely under the President, who is also the Minister of Defence, and that he is responsible only to the President. If we look at the reports of the various commissions, committees, and other structures appointed from time to time regarding the Easter Sunday attacks, including the Presidential Commission, the learned President's Counsel will be able to understand from top to bottom.
The statement made by the then Secretary to the Ministry of defence, Hemasiri Fernando, before the Presidential Commission investigating the Easter Sunday attacks clearly shows that Senior DIG Nilantha Jayawardena, who was the head of the State Intelligence Service at the time of the Easter Sunday attacks, was directly acting under President Sirisena and that even the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence was unable to intervene in the matter.
Moreover, if the learned counsel's client had read even the first few pages of the 148-page statement given to the said Presidential Commission, the lawyer would have easily read that not only is he responsible to the President as the Head of the State Intelligence Service, but also how Saleh can change the situation when a President ignores what he says and appoint the President to a position where he does what he wants. Similarly, the extremely powerful role played by the Head of the National Intelligence Service in the structure known as the Security Council can also be clearly read from those reports. (A more detailed analysis of the situation revealed by these statements is contained in the chapter on the Tripoli military intelligence unit in my book “Who is Lasantha? - Finding the Roots of State Crime...” published earlier this year.)
This is an excerpt from page 922 of the report, i.e. page 18 of Suresh Saleh’s testimony. The question of Appeal Court Judge Nissanka Bandula Karunaratne and Suresh Saleh’s answer appears as follows. (The author has made minor abridgements to retain the meaning.)
Q: For example, if the President says, “No, we don’t want to do that,” then do we (you) remain silent, or do we inform him that “No, Mr President, that’s not the case,” and encourage him to do this?
A: We definitely encourage him. Because if we can't get there, we'll use alternative methods to see if we can stop it according to our methodology. If that is not possible, we will take steps to convey the necessary message and its seriousness to the President in some other way.”/End of quote/
Now we need to read this ‘incitement’ of Suresh Saleh in relation to the statements of the IGP and other senior police officers mentioned above.
We will quote just one small instance where this ‘incitement’ even comes to mind from page 16 of the 25-page evidence file submitted to the court by the CID on the 11th. The evidence is that of the then Deputy IGP in charge of the CID.
/End of quote/
“…As soon as the speech ended, Mr. Suresh Saleh, who was near the President, was seen leaning towards the President and saying something, and at the same time, the President asked, ‘Hey, what is the status of Sarah Jasmine’s case, DIG, as CID, can you tell me whether Sarah Jasmine is alive or dead?’…”/End of quote/
(This is just a very brief example of how Suresh Saleh ‘influenced’ the President in the Security Council meetings. We hope to discuss Sarah’s 3rd DNA test and Suresh Saleh’s involvement in detail on another occasion.)
Even an ordinary person who reads the facts presented in these reports will have no difficulty in understanding the influential situation that the IGP and other senior police officers mentioned here had to face due to Suresh Saleh’s intervention in front of the Security Council.
We do not believe at all that President’s Counsel Anuja Premaratne does not know these things. But instead, he puts aside what he knows and argues for his client in court. Unfortunately, they are false arguments that are spreading. We are pointing out that these arguments are completely baseless.
Another argument of the lawyer is that Suresh Saleh was in Malaysia at the time of the Easter attacks. He seems to be implying that how could a person who was not even in the country be involved in the Easter Sunday attacks in this way?
But another argument against his argument is raised by some politicians who are not in court but in other public spaces and who are partisans who are crying foul for Salle. According to them, Suresh Salle is a ‘war hero who made a huge contribution to ending the LTTE war.’ However, according to official records, Salle was on duty abroad as the First Secretary of the Paris Embassy during the most crucial period of the so-called war, i.e. from 2006 to 2009.
Despite the facts, some rhetorical liars say that Suresh Salle was the one who led the operation to assassinate the LTTE political leader Tamil Selvan in November 2007.
While reporting to the Paris Embassy, Sri Lankan security, how can a 'super genius' like Saleh, who told the council how to kill Tamil Selvan and even had a fighter jet ready 24 hours a day, be prevented from doing anything about the Easter Sunday attacks by being in Malaysia?
On the other hand, while working at the French embassy in 2007, attending a Security Council meeting in Sri Lanka, which was an official duty, and was performing two unrelated official duties at the same time. It was an extraordinary power for Saleh to perform two completely different duties in two countries at the same time.
But the Easter Sunday attack was not such an official duty. It was a top-secret operation. There is no reason why Saleh, who also served as the Director of Military Intelligence, should have been in Malaysia to secretly come to Sri Lanka for such a conspiratorial necessity.
On the other hand, it is another lie to say that Saleh was in Malaysia at the time of the Easter Sunday attack. At that time, he was in India. Receiving training at the National Defence College there.
A fact that has been continuously revealed in the recent drug crackdown operations in the country is that drug traffickers who have fled the country and are currently residing in other countries are playing a major role in running the drug trade in Sri Lanka from their respective countries. If the gangsters and drug traffickers who have fled the country can run the drug trade in Sri Lanka from abroad, then the President’s Counsel’s attempt to say that Suresh Saleh, who was the Director of Military Intelligence, cannot run certain operations in Sri Lanka from anywhere other than Malaysia, is extremely childish.
However, let us note for now that it has already been conclusively revealed in the statement of Hemasiri Fernando, the Secretary to the Ministry of defence, who was present at the time of the attack, that Saleh met us in Sri Lanka during his official stay in Malaysia or India, that is, a month or a half before the Easter Sunday attacks, and it is believed that extensive investigations will be carried out in this regard in the future.
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by (2026-03-17 13:23:02)
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