Application to exhume Schaffter’s body for further investigation

The five-member special forensic expert committee appointed to further investigate businessman Dinesh Schaffter’s death, has written to the Colombo Magistrate’s Court seeking authority to exhume his body to ascertain the cause of his death.

The letter was submitted to the Court on Thursday and the judge said that a new date would be fixed for hearing when an order will be given to the CID based on the committee’s request.

On February 27, the Colombo Additional Magistrate ordered the appointment of the five-member expert committee to make a report on Schaffter’s death. He called for a list of senior Judicial Medical Officers (JMOs) from the Director General of Health Services. A similar list of forensic specialists in the university system was requested from the University Grants Commission.

Upon receiving the two lists, the experts’ committee was appointed to examine the matter as contradictions have been observed in the post-mortem reports.

The 52-year-old Schaffter was found tied up in the driving seat of his car at the Borella Cemetery on December 15, 2022, and died the following day due to a cardiac arrest while receiving treatment at the Colombo National Hospital. The Homicide and Organized Crimes Division of the CID is conducting the investigation together with the Borella police.