Minister of Regional Development, Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka will be brought in for further questioning by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) on Tuesday in connection with the murder of slain editor Lasantha Wickrematunga.
According to highly placed sources, Fonseka arrived at the CID at about 10 in the morning on Friday and questioning continued till about 4 in the evening. He was questioned for over 5 hours.
It was revealed that Fonseka had admitted that there was a separate squad which was involved in extrajudicial activities and received direct orders from the former President and the former Secretary of Defence.
At a political program show on TV on Friday night, Fonseka admitted that he made a statement at the CID and said that these measures were taken through General Hendawitharana. “The former president and the defence secretary must take full responsibility for Lasantha’s murder. I had no animosity with Lasantha, though we had disagreements over the course of the war,” he is supposed to have said in his statement.
According to Fonseka, Lasantha became a target due to his investigations into the purchase of MIG aircraft.
Two weeks back, the CID obtained a statement from Wickremathunga’s daughter who made a statement corroborating these facts. She had stated that she were told by her father that ‘his life was threatened due to his reporting on a MIG purchase scandal’. The statements were produced before the Mt. Lavania Magistrate.
The statement will be produced before courts at the next hearing.
Fonseka told the TV show that Lal Wickrematunga, brother of Lasantha, was paid by the Rajapakses to blame Fonseka for the murder.
The slain Editor’s body was exhumed by the CID in September last year to conduct further investigations and the report is yet to be finalised.
Although a sergeant attached to the military intelligence unit was taken into custody he was later released on bail.
It is eight years since the brutal killing of the former editor of the Sunday Leader. He was killed by unidentified gunmen on the Attidia road, Mt. Lavinia.