SJB: PM, Keheliya have admitted state intelligence paid Zahran

Weerasekera flays Opposition for spreading canards

By Saman Indrajith

Chief Opposition Whip and SJB Kandy District MP Lakshman Kiriella told Parliament yesterday both Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella were on record admitting that Zahran Hashim who led the Easter Sunday attacks was in the payroll of intelligence agencies.

MP Kiriella said that Prime Minister Rajapaksa had admitted at the Rajopawanaramaya in Getabme that Zahran Hashim had been on the government’s payroll.

“Minister Rambukwella too made the same admission during a press conference. Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka told this House that Zahran’s services had not been obtained while he was the Commander of the Army. He made it clear that Zahran’s services had been obtained after 2010,” the Chief Opposition Whip said.

Kiriella said so after a ministerial statement by Public Security Minister Rear Admiral (retd) Sarath Weerasekera that Zahran’s wife Fathima Zaadiya had never stated that intelligence officers met with Zahran.

Minister Weerasekera, tabling a statement made by Zahran’s wife, Zaadaiya, to the police, said that there was no mention therein that Zahran had met any intelligence officers.

Minister Weerasekera said that SJB MP Harin Fernando’s statement that state intelligence officers had met Zahran was a blatant lie. He challenged MP Fernando to make the same statement outside the House accusing the latter of making false statements taking cover behind parliamentary privileges.

The CID officers had interrogated Zahran’s wife on a date prior to the Easter Sunday attacks, the minister said, adding that had Shani Abeysekera conducted the CID investigations in a proper manner the Easter Sunday disaster could have been averted.

Minister Weerasekera said that MP Fernando had once claimed a suspicious lorry had been turned back at the Gelanigama Entrance of the Southern Expressway. It was not a suspicious lorry but one that had been transporting ornamental fish imported from China to Horana, the minister said.

Minister Weerasekera, “We are passing a time when lies and unfounded allegations related to the Easter Sunday carnage are being circulated and some Opposition MPs are trying to be heroes in Parliament”.

He said that “dogs, asses and foxes” did not have the ability to love the country and requested all MPs not to undermine national security.

Weerasekera said some persons had made various unfounded allegations against Director State Intelligence Service Maj. Gen. Suresh Salley but Salley had made a name for himself as an exemplary officer who loved his motherland.