- "MY HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATED"
- "UK LEGAL SYSTEM NOT FAIR"
Ranga Jayasuriya
Defence Secretary Gota-bhaya Rajapakse yesterday denied allegations that he helped former Eastern Tiger Commander Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna to obtain a fraudulent diplomatic passport.
The powerful Defence Secretary is embroiled in a controversy after British prosecutors said on Friday that he had assisted Karuna to obtain the passport.
“I haven’t helped him (Karuna). It is wrong for the British Judiciary to make public these claims without verification,” he said.
“I wish that the British legal system would have been much better and dispalyed some fair play,” he said. He told the LAKBIMAnEWS that neither he nor any agencies of the Sri Lankan government had been asked by their British counterpart about the authenticity of allegations levelled against him.
“This is an infringement of my human rights,” quipped Rajapakse.
On Friday, reading Karuna’s statement at the Isleworth Crown Court in West London, the prosecution said President’s Rajapaksa’s younger brother was known to him (Karuna) since he defected from the LTTE.
Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, ‘arranged everything’ for him to come to UK using a diplomatic passport, Karuna has told British immigration authorities, according to the prosecutors.
According to the statement, the passport was given to him only once inside the plane bound for UK.
British prosecutors said Karuna pleaded guilty to a criminal offence under British immigration law, but said it was the Sri Lankan government that arranged a diplomatic passport for him. Karuna sat behind a protective screen inside the courtroom. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse however said he doubted whether Karuna himself made the confession.
Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama earlier denied the involvement of the Sri Lankan Government in issuing a diplomatic passport to the renegade Eastern leader of the LTTE.
However, The British High Commission has announced that the Visa had been granted based on a Third Party Note issued by the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry.
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