In answering the call of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Sri Lanka (CBCSL), the faithful living in various parts of the country recently wore black and attended church as a protest against the failure to provide justice for all those who were killed in the Easter Sunday bombings in 2019. They also participated in silent protests. Black Sunday is a good occasion to reflect back, not only on the lives that were lost on that blackened Easter Sunday, but also on the general nature of the threats posed to human life in Sri Lanka.
All this time, the two Governments, the one that was in power (the United National Front [UNF] led one) and the one that is in power now (the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna [SLPP] led one), have concentrated more on creating a political discourse around the Easter Sunday massacre. However, what they have completely failed to focus on is the investigation that was required in the context of a grave crime. No amount of Presidential Commissions of Inquiry (PCoIs) can replace the most primary requirement in dealing with crimes: The need for criminal investigations. PCoIs are not and cannot be the means of inquiring into a crime in terms of the criminal law. That is the task of criminal investigators.
In a modern society, the prevention of crime and the punishment for crimes that have already taken place can take place only when there is a dedicated, competent, and efficient criminal justice system. It is the investigators who can find the actual criminals who carried out these bomb attacks and the conspirators who were criminally involved.
Criminal investigations are a function of the Police Department. It is perhaps the most important function of a police department to have the kind of investigators that could find all the evidence that is required to reveal the facts of a crime and those who are involved in the crime. The gathering of evidence from the point of view of the criminal law and the law of evidence of a country is the only way by which the criminals can be found and successfully prosecuted.
The people who sit as presidential commissioners are not part of the police investigative division, nor do they have the necessary means and competence to be investigators.
Proverbially, the task of a criminal investigator is illustrated by a character like Sherlock Holmes created by Arthur Conan Doyle or Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie. The criminal investigator uses the methods that have been developed over centuries in order to gather facts relating to a crime and thereafter to analyse these facts to arrive at conclusions about the individuals who were involved in carrying out the crime.
If the CBCSL and all others who are concerned with bringing the perpetrators of the bomb blasts that killed a large number of persons, are to make a deeper contribution to resolving this neglected problem, their concentration should be on scrutinising the manner in which the criminal investigations into these bomb blasts have been carried out.
If such scrutiny is carried out, one glaring fact will come to the attention of anyone concerned: That something has gone radically wrong in the criminal investigative capacity of the Sri Lanka Police. Whatever may be the cause of this loss of capacity for thorough and comprehensive criminal investigations leading to tangible results, the important matter now is to address the loss of this all important capacity in order to ensure the security of the people. When the policing function of criminal investigations is lost, everything is lost from the point of view of the capacity to investigate and prosecute criminals. That situation has existed in Sri Lanka for the past few decades.
When President Gotabaya Rajapaksa speaks of security, he always refers to security in the context of conflicts, like with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is very different to the security that should prevail within a society in normal times. The primary agency in the times of conflict in maintaining national security is the military. However, the primary agency that is in charge of dealing with crimes, including criminal investigations, is the national police service. In the comments made by President Rajapaksa and other leading figures in the Government, there is hardly any mention of the resuscitation of the criminal investigative capacity of the Sri Lanka Police.
The same could be said of the previous UNF-led Government also. They too completely neglected the development of an independent criminal investigation branch that is not dependent on the manipulations of politicians but carry out their functions only within the professional limits that are part of the philosophies and practices relating to criminal prosecutions. In fact, in recent times, all governments have conspired and acted continuously to undermine the criminal investigative capacity of the Sri Lanka Police.
By the end of the colonial period, and in the early years after Independence, there were very important developments and many resources were allocated in order to develop a kind of professional criminal investigative department which could stand on par with similar institutions in other parts of the world. In fact, the achievements of the criminal investigators of the time were remarkable.
However, that is not the situation today. Among many causes that have contributed to the present state of deterioration is the manipulation of the criminal investigative departments for various political uses. Using criminal investigative powers to target political opponents or to undo and erase evidence for political reasons have affected the system badly.
The damaged criminal investigation capacity is the source from which Sri Lanka’s inability to conduct serious criminal investigations arose. That is the root that needs to be addressed by those who are demanding accountability for the crimes committed on Easter Sunday, and the issue they should concentrate their efforts on.
If that does not take place, all that will happen is merely a repetition of what has already taken place during the last two years; i.e. a farcical situation that does not ensure justice for the victims and the survivors of this massacre. It is not only about this massacre but also about almost all serious crimes.
The prosecutor cannot replace the functions of the investigator. If the investigator fails, all that the prosecutors could do is make all kinds of public promises and public statements which themselves are essentially farcical in nature.
Thus, those who lost their lives in the Easter Sunday massacre have a message for all the people living in Sri Lanka now: “If the protection of life is to be guaranteed, first of all ensure that the crimes committed against us be criminally investigated and, by doing that, make the loss of our lives meaningful for the rest of the country so that similar occurrences would be prevented by the very knowledge that the country is capable of getting at any criminal of whatever orientation or inclination in the shortest possible time.”
If there was a well-functioning criminal investigation unit, it would have received information about the crime long before it would have taken place. For people to trust the Police, it is essential that they have a conviction that the information that is given to the Police will lead to inquiries and that the capacity of the investigators is such that they are capable of finding the truth.
The paralysed and dysfunctional criminal investigation capacity of the Sri Lanka Police is the root cause of the inability to prevent serious crime.
The lives of everybody in Sri Lanka are at risk. If a serious crime takes place, it would be an uphill task to get a proper complaint registered at a police station that would lead to the beginning of an investigation. It is so difficult for people to even register a proper complaint at police stations.
In one such incident, on a matter of an attempted murder, a man who was the victim and his family made all possible attempts to get a complaint registered. Initially, the relevant police station had no interest in registering the complaint. After much pestering, when the Police moved to register the complaint, they did it so carelessly that the affected person did not want to sign that statement. Even after getting this unsatisfactory statement, the Police made no attempt to visit the crime scene and to do any kind of credible investigation. The man had to go to the relevant Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and Superintendent of Police (SP), on many occasions, over and over again, over a few weeks, and even then, despite many promises, no investigation was carried out. Thereafter, he complained to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the National Police Commission (NPC), and the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL). All he received was a letter from the IGP saying that his complaint will be looked into by a senior officer attached to the area where the incident took place. And when this person contacted the said assigned officer, he was given a date, and when he went there, the investigation into his complaint was postponed for another two months.
That incident is not an exception. That is the way things take place in Sri Lanka to almost everybody who does not have any kind of political clout if he/she goes to get a complaint registered at a police station.
A neglected policing system with an extremely poor Criminal Investigations Department (CID) is what Sri Lanka has to deal with in any crime, including such horrible crimes like the Easter Sunday massacre. It would be nothing less than a joke if those concerned keep on expecting that the perpetrators of this crime would be punished while the nature of the investigating mechanism that exists in Sri Lanka is in such a collapsed state.
It has become the duty of all people of goodwill, including religious leaders, intellectuals, and everyone, to give highest priority to the demand of immediate actions on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka to address the issue of serious defects in the policing system in Sri Lanka and, in particular, the serious defects in the police investigation capacity in Sri Lanka.
If that does not take place, punishing the perpetrators of the Easter Sunday massacre will be a pie in the sky.
(The writer is the Director of Policy and Programmes of the Asian Human Rights Commission)Black Sunday: If Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot investigated the Easter Sunday massacre
24 Mar 2021
Black Sunday: If Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot investigated the Easter Sunday massacre
24 Mar 2021
In answering the call of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Sri Lanka (CBCSL), the faithful living in various parts of the country recently wore black and attended church as a protest against the failure to provide justice for all those who were killed in the Easter Sunday bombings in 2019. They also participated in silent protests. Black Sunday is a good occasion to reflect back, not only on the lives that were lost on that blackened Easter Sunday, but also on the general nature of the threats posed to human life in Sri Lanka.
All this time, the two Governments, the one that was in power (the United National Front [UNF] led one) and the one that is in power now (the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna [SLPP] led one), have concentrated more on creating a political discourse around the Easter Sunday massacre. However, what they have completely failed to focus on is the investigation that was required in the context of a grave crime. No amount of Presidential Commissions of Inquiry (PCoIs) can replace the most primary requirement in dealing with crimes: The need for criminal investigations. PCoIs are not and cannot be the means of inquiring into a crime in terms of the criminal law. That is the task of criminal investigators.
In a modern society, the prevention of crime and the punishment for crimes that have already taken place can take place only when there is a dedicated, competent, and efficient criminal justice system. It is the investigators who can find the actual criminals who carried out these bomb attacks and the conspirators who were criminally involved.
Criminal investigations are a function of the Police Department. It is perhaps the most important function of a police department to have the kind of investigators that could find all the evidence that is required to reveal the facts of a crime and those who are involved in the crime. The gathering of evidence from the point of view of the criminal law and the law of evidence of a country is the only way by which the criminals can be found and successfully prosecuted.
The people who sit as presidential commissioners are not part of the police investigative division, nor do they have the necessary means and competence to be investigators.
Proverbially, the task of a criminal investigator is illustrated by a character like Sherlock Holmes created by Arthur Conan Doyle or Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie. The criminal investigator uses the methods that have been developed over centuries in order to gather facts relating to a crime and thereafter to analyse these facts to arrive at conclusions about the individuals who were involved in carrying out the crime.
If the CBCSL and all others who are concerned with bringing the perpetrators of the bomb blasts that killed a large number of persons, are to make a deeper contribution to resolving this neglected problem, their concentration should be on scrutinising the manner in which the criminal investigations into these bomb blasts have been carried out.
If such scrutiny is carried out, one glaring fact will come to the attention of anyone concerned: That something has gone radically wrong in the criminal investigative capacity of the Sri Lanka Police. Whatever may be the cause of this loss of capacity for thorough and comprehensive criminal investigations leading to tangible results, the important matter now is to address the loss of this all important capacity in order to ensure the security of the people. When the policing function of criminal investigations is lost, everything is lost from the point of view of the capacity to investigate and prosecute criminals. That situation has existed in Sri Lanka for the past few decades.
When President Gotabaya Rajapaksa speaks of security, he always refers to security in the context of conflicts, like with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is very different to the security that should prevail within a society in normal times. The primary agency in the times of conflict in maintaining national security is the military. However, the primary agency that is in charge of dealing with crimes, including criminal investigations, is the national police service. In the comments made by President Rajapaksa and other leading figures in the Government, there is hardly any mention of the resuscitation of the criminal investigative capacity of the Sri Lanka Police.
The same could be said of the previous UNF-led Government also. They too completely neglected the development of an independent criminal investigation branch that is not dependent on the manipulations of politicians but carry out their functions only within the professional limits that are part of the philosophies and practices relating to criminal prosecutions. In fact, in recent times, all governments have conspired and acted continuously to undermine the criminal investigative capacity of the Sri Lanka Police.
By the end of the colonial period, and in the early years after Independence, there were very important developments and many resources were allocated in order to develop a kind of professional criminal investigative department which could stand on par with similar institutions in other parts of the world. In fact, the achievements of the criminal investigators of the time were remarkable.
However, that is not the situation today. Among many causes that have contributed to the present state of deterioration is the manipulation of the criminal investigative departments for various political uses. Using criminal investigative powers to target political opponents or to undo and erase evidence for political reasons have affected the system badly.
The damaged criminal investigation capacity is the source from which Sri Lanka’s inability to conduct serious criminal investigations arose. That is the root that needs to be addressed by those who are demanding accountability for the crimes committed on Easter Sunday, and the issue they should concentrate their efforts on.
If that does not take place, all that will happen is merely a repetition of what has already taken place during the last two years; i.e. a farcical situation that does not ensure justice for the victims and the survivors of this massacre. It is not only about this massacre but also about almost all serious crimes.
The prosecutor cannot replace the functions of the investigator. If the investigator fails, all that the prosecutors could do is make all kinds of public promises and public statements which themselves are essentially farcical in nature.
Thus, those who lost their lives in the Easter Sunday massacre have a message for all the people living in Sri Lanka now: “If the protection of life is to be guaranteed, first of all ensure that the crimes committed against us be criminally investigated and, by doing that, make the loss of our lives meaningful for the rest of the country so that similar occurrences would be prevented by the very knowledge that the country is capable of getting at any criminal of whatever orientation or inclination in the shortest possible time.”
If there was a well-functioning criminal investigation unit, it would have received information about the crime long before it would have taken place. For people to trust the Police, it is essential that they have a conviction that the information that is given to the Police will lead to inquiries and that the capacity of the investigators is such that they are capable of finding the truth.
The paralysed and dysfunctional criminal investigation capacity of the Sri Lanka Police is the root cause of the inability to prevent serious crime.
The lives of everybody in Sri Lanka are at risk. If a serious crime takes place, it would be an uphill task to get a proper complaint registered at a police station that would lead to the beginning of an investigation. It is so difficult for people to even register a proper complaint at police stations.
In one such incident, on a matter of an attempted murder, a man who was the victim and his family made all possible attempts to get a complaint registered. Initially, the relevant police station had no interest in registering the complaint. After much pestering, when the Police moved to register the complaint, they did it so carelessly that the affected person did not want to sign that statement. Even after getting this unsatisfactory statement, the Police made no attempt to visit the crime scene and to do any kind of credible investigation. The man had to go to the relevant Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and Superintendent of Police (SP), on many occasions, over and over again, over a few weeks, and even then, despite many promises, no investigation was carried out. Thereafter, he complained to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the National Police Commission (NPC), and the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL). All he received was a letter from the IGP saying that his complaint will be looked into by a senior officer attached to the area where the incident took place. And when this person contacted the said assigned officer, he was given a date, and when he went there, the investigation into his complaint was postponed for another two months.
That incident is not an exception. That is the way things take place in Sri Lanka to almost everybody who does not have any kind of political clout if he/she goes to get a complaint registered at a police station.
A neglected policing system with an extremely poor Criminal Investigations Department (CID) is what Sri Lanka has to deal with in any crime, including such horrible crimes like the Easter Sunday massacre. It would be nothing less than a joke if those concerned keep on expecting that the perpetrators of this crime would be punished while the nature of the investigating mechanism that exists in Sri Lanka is in such a collapsed state.
It has become the duty of all people of goodwill, including religious leaders, intellectuals, and everyone, to give highest priority to the demand of immediate actions on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka to address the issue of serious defects in the policing system in Sri Lanka and, in particular, the serious defects in the police investigation capacity in Sri Lanka.
If that does not take place, punishing the perpetrators of the Easter Sunday massacre will be a pie in the sky.
(The writer is the Director of Policy and Programmes of the Asian Human Rights Commission)Kapruka
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Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!