-By Ruwan Weerakoon
(Lanka-e-News -2026.June.19, 6.10 PM) Recent investigative breakthroughs have exposed a deeply entrenched apparatus of power, state-sponsored violence, and financial impunity within Sri Lanka’s military intelligence infrastructure. Orchestrated under the executive blessing of former Defence Secretary and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, this shadow system fractured institutional command lines, weaponized communal extremist elements, and systematically looted un-audited state resources to sustain a political dynasty.
During the mid-2000s, the formal architecture of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) was intentionally bifurcated into two mutually exclusive operations:
The Orthodox Command: One faction remained aligned with standard military bureaucracy, reporting directly to the active Army Commander for battlefield and conventional counter-insurgency operations.
The Parallel Pipeline: The second, more lethal faction bypassed the formal military chain of command entirely. It was placed under the exclusive stewardship of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s closest institutional trustee, Retired Major General Kapila Hendawitharana, operating in the centralized capacity of Chief of National Intelligence (CNI).
This parallel structure effectively established a state within a state. Within this insular network, tactical control of sensitive operational cells was handed to Suresh Sallay, who ran highly compartmentalized operations under the direct, unmediated supervision of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The logistical and operational survival of this parallel network relied on absolute financial secrecy. While every other regiment within the Sri Lanka Army is subject to rigorous, itemized oversight by the Army Audit Department, the Intelligence Secret Fund was granted total immunity from state scrutiny.
Originally approved by the Cabinet under the wartime justification that cash payouts to deep-cover assets required strict anonymity, this lack of oversight was deliberately extended long into the post-war era. Millions in public funds continued to flow into this account, disproportionately diverted away from legitimate national security needs and into the hands of the Hendawitharana-Sallay faction. This un-audited cash reserve became the foundational liquidity for Sri Lanka’s contemporary deep state.
Subsequent and ongoing investigations by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) have definitively linked this parallel intelligence faction to a systematic campaign of state-sponsored terror designed to silence dissent, cripple independent journalism, and eliminate political rivals.
Comprehensive CID case files have exposed the direct involvement of these clandestine intelligence cells—most notably operating out of the Girithale camp—in a series of high-profile atrocities:
Assassinations and Disappearances: The premeditated murder of The Sunday Leader Editor-in-Chief Lasantha Wickrematunge, the forced disappearance of Lanka e News journalist and cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, and the extrajudicial killings of rugby star Wasim Thajudeen and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Member of Parliament Nadirajah Raviraj.
Assaults and Torture: The brutal, targeted physical assaults on The Nation Associate Editor Keith Noyahr and Rivira Editor Upali Tennakoon.
Arson and Media Sabotage: Orchestrated arson attacks and coordinated raids targeting independent media stations, including Sirasa TV, Siyatha TV, and the physical infrastructure of Lanka e News.
To consolidate and retain executive power, the parallel intelligence structure allegedly executed a strategy of tension, manipulating ethno-religious fault lines on both sides of the communal spectrum.
The Majoritarian Axis
The deep state actively nurtured, financed, or shielded militant Sinhala-Buddhist extremist groups to manufacture a state of perpetual ethnic anxiety. This artificial polarization was designed to engineer a social demand for a majoritarian "strongman" ruler. The principal catalysts of this communal radicalization included:
Venerable Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara (Bodu Bala Sena)
Venerable Professor Medagoda Abeythissa
Dan Priyasad
Amith Weerasinghe
Namal Kumara (whose staged assassination-plot disclosures were leveraged to disrupt state intelligence structures)
The Minority Axis and the Easter Sunday Attacks
Simultaneously, the deep state maintained highly problematic, clandestine management over radicalized fractions within the minority Muslim community, a domain directly overseen by Suresh Sallay. Evolving CID investigations, whistleblower testimonies, and judicial filings increasingly point to a catastrophic nexus: the rogue intelligence faction actively utilized, monitored, and indirectly funded the radicalized nucleus of the National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ) led by Zahran Hashim.
This controlled cultivation of extremism culminated in the horrific 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks—an intelligence-orchestrated tragedy that destabilized the sitting government and directly facilitated the political resurrection of the Rajapaksa regime.
Even as the formal executive power of the Rajapaksa dynasty has waned, the financial machinery of the deep state continues to operate. A glaring example of this institutional corruption is the ongoing, illicit utilization of the Intelligence Secret Fund to bankroll the exorbitant private legal defense fees of high-profile suspects under active criminal investigation, including Major General Suresh Sallay.
To circumvent central banking alerts, anti-money laundering protocols, and formal state audits, the network utilizes a multi-tiered cash-routing pipeline:
This structural pathway bypasses formal banking trails entirely. Public state resources are withdrawn in cash, handed over to trusted proxies, passed to Sallay’s wife, and subsequently used to retain premier legal representation.
The utilization of public state funds to underwrite the private criminal defense fees of an intelligence officer suspected of state-level conspiracy and crimes against humanity is a severe violation of the law. Leading President’s Counsels have issued definitive legal findings stating that these transactions are entirely illegal, unconstitutional, and constitute a direct misappropriation of public property.
While certain operational details are currently being withheld from public print to safeguard the integrity of live, sensitive CID investigations, the public demand for total transparency remains absolute. The apparatus of the deep state must be systematically dismantled, and those who weaponized public office, public funds, and human lives for dynastic consolidation must face uncompromised justice.
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by (2026-06-19 12:51:59)
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