COLOMBO – One of the key eyewitnesses of the 2012 Welikada prison massacre, Sudesh Nandimal De Silva, has received death threats from unidentified individuals, Attorney-at-Law and the chairman of the Committee for Protecting Rights of Prisoners (CPRP), Senaka Perera, revealed on Monday (26).
He said two unidentified individuals had on July 7, inquired from neighbours about De Silva’s movements and made statements which implied death threats to De Silva, and pointed out that similar threats had been issued 15 years ago, also by unidentified persons and shots had been fired at the witness’ sister’s house in Moratuwa where he was residing temporarily.
Sixteen prisoners were killed over 45 were injured during the November 2012 riots at the Welikada Prison, that saw prisoner clash with elite commandos of the Special Task Force (STF).
Perera said a police complaint has been lodged and the relevant CCTV footage of the unidentified persons has been submitted to the police for investigation purposes.
Welikada Prison became infamous for the July 1983 massacre, where 53 Tamil inmates were slaughtered while prison guards watched on. Those killed included Sellarasa ‘Kuttimani’ Yogachandiran, leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), and Ganeshanathan Jeganathan, a political writer, who had their eyes gouged before being killed by the Sinhalese inmates. A total of 37 Tamil prisoners were murdered on July 25, 18 more were killed two days later.
-TG