Rajitha refutes media reports on RAW plot

Co-Cabinet spokesperson Minister Rajitha Senaratne refuted media reports that stated that President Maithripala Sirisena had informed Cabinet that the RAW was plotting to kill him.

The President had only noted that certain groups were trying to insinuate that the Indian arrested in the attempted assassination plot case was an agent of the Indian Intelligence Agency; RAW, Minister Senaratne said, at the weekly Cabinet media briefing.

“Through this they are trying to create issues between India and Sri Lanka, the President had said,” the Minister said.

The story had been reported in the Indian newspaper The Hindu yesterday with the report quoting multiple sources within the Cabinet.

The CID in September arrested an Indian national who had visited Anti-Corruption Force Organization Working Director Namal Kumara’s house and later revealed that the Indian had revealed to them that he was aware of a plot to kill incumbent President Maithripala Sirisena and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family. The Indian High Commission in a statement released since then has stated that the Indian national was not of sound mind.

Details of an assassination plot came to light when Kumara playing an audio recording at a press conference said that the former TID chief DIG Nalaka Silva and some officers were planning to kill President Sirisena and former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Minister Senaratne in addition revealed that the President had noted at the Cabinet meeting that the file on DIG Nalaka Silva was yet to be handed over to him. DIG Silva was interdicted from his post yesterday.

When questioned as to why action against those mentioned in the audio recording was slow even after the Government Analyst’s report proved its credibility, Minister Senaratne said that while the recording may be true, it did not mean that the contents had any validity, “No one said that it was enough proof for an arrest. We also can’t take the word of Namal Kumara who is a police informant,” he said.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is scheduled to visit India this week and also met the Indian High Commissioner yesterday.