Changing five defence secretaries had no effect on national security- Ex-President Sirisena

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Neither the Constitutional crisis of 2018 nor the periodic changes of Presidential and Defence Secretaries between 2015 and 2018 had impacted adversely national security, former President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday (25) told the PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks.

Sirisena made this statement when Attorney- at- Law Dilshan Jayasuriya, appearing for former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, asked whether the appointment of five Defence Secretaries and three Presidential Secretaries in a short period of time had affected the continuity of government policy and national security.

The former President said that it was normal for those in charge of security to be removed from time to time, even in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom that happened.

“Leaders like Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Boris Johnson have removed senior officials on a number of occasions,” he said.

He said that he still believed that the decision to remove Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister and to appoint a new Prime Minister was right. Sirisena said that the decision had been taken in consultation with legal experts and this change had no impact on government officials.

“Therefore it’s wrong to claim that these incidents affected the national security or that the public servants were inconvenienced,” Sirisena said.