Wasantha Karannagoda & Gotabaya Rajapaksa: Free For How Long?
Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), based on the mandate it received, established “OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL).” As a part of this, on 21 July 2025, there was a 15-page report on enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka was released. The relevant Mandates were received by 1) The Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence; 2) The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; 3) The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and 4) The Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.
The report is a good reminder of what the Sri Lankan state does and gets away with. It also reminds us how horrid our state is, and how many important reports like this in the English language tend not to force their attention upon us the public.
The report’s purpose is to “bring to the attention of your Excellency’s Government [I,e., the government of President A.K. Dissanayake [AKD]] “information [the authors of the report] received concerning the prolonged failure to investigate effectively, prosecute and punish those responsible for gross human rights violations, including extra-judicial executions and enforced disappearances, within the context of the Sri Lankan civil war.”
In particular, the report highlights the following high-profile cases: Trinco 5, ACF, Navy 11, White flags, Channel 4, Mullaitivu mass grave and the Chemmani mass graves each of which involves multiple victims.
Wasantha Karannagoda and Gotabaya Rejapaksa: Consistency?
Today under AKD, many are being investigated, charged and jailed for their crimes against the people of Sri Lanka.
Unfortunately, there is no consistency on who is jailed upon conviction. While all who are credibly accused and arrested, like Ranil Wickremesinghe, must face the music, some who are being prosecuted appear to have the system on their side. Gotabaya Rajapaksa seems happily free while Karannagoda has seen feeble efforts against him to bring him to book. Both seem to be heroes among the Sinhalese for the murders they are accused of, as if the accusation of killing Tamils even for the venal purpose of collecting ransom makes one great in Sri Lanka.
To be sure, even these two men who are accused of the brutal murder of Tamils, have been sanctioned by the US and Canada. As a Tamil, I firmly believe that we as a community will never receive justice through investigations under the Sri Lankan state. I have seen obviously planted press stories on the Chemmany massacre claiming that facts leading to conviction will be brought out only when Sinhalese soldiers are in charge of investigations, devoting to such stories far more column-inches well above the norm. The Bar Association condemned Darusman’s 2011 Report to the UN Secretary General on the Mulllaitivu massacre even before it was released, with eminent Tamil lawyers present at the meeting allowing the condemnation to be unanimous!
Sri Lankan justice does not exist for Tamils. Credible justice will come only when foreign participants play a strong and moderating role.
The OISL Report
As seen in the report, “14 individuals including Naval Commander Karannagoda were indicted in 2019. The charges against Karannagoda were dropped in 2021.
In 2023, the Attorney-General decided not to implement the decision of a Commission of Inquiry to drop charges and went ahead with prosecutions. In March 2025, two Supreme Court judges [namelyDilip Nawaz and Priyantha Fernando], recused themselves from a case involving former Sri Lankan Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda, citing “personal reasons”. The UNP Protested that Mr. Jaywardene“was Basil Rajapaksa’s [that is Mahinda Rajapaksa’s. brother’s] personal lawyer at the time he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2014 A newly appointed bench is expected to re-hear the case on 15 September 2025.”
That recusal in March 2025, led to a further six-month delay in a trial already delayed by the AG’s inconsistent and unexplained flipflops. On 15 Sept. when the Supreme Court took up the case, it postponed the hearing to 30 Jan. 2026. Karannagoda seems well-looked after, comfortably ensconsed in impunity.
While the Report cites a Commission of Inquiry for why the AG Charged Karannagoda, no major newspaper seems to have carried it. The Asian Mirror with little known of who owns it, waffles a little (15 Sept. 15) and says that “In 2019, the Attorney General filed indictments before the Colombo Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar against 14 individuals, including former Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda and members of the Navy’s intelligence unit, [and that] during proceedings, the Attorney General decided to drop Karannagoda’s name from the list of accused, despite previously naming him a suspect based on what the petitioners say was sufficient evidence.”
Since when does the AG file charges based on what private individuals say? To frame charges initially the AG must have had evidence against Karannagoda. It stinks of a coverup by the Deep State in collusion with the weaker sections of the press and the judiciary, increasingly being tools of Sinhalese nationalism.
The Commission of Inquiry
Interestingly, we discern a dirty nexus between Karannagoda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The unnamed Commission that made the charges by the Attorney General to be dropped suddenly on grounds of lack of evidence after concluding there was sufficient evidence to charge Karannagoda, was none other than “The Presidential Commission on Political Victimization.” This commission was appointed (that is its members hand-picked) by Gotabaya in January 2020, “to investigate ‘political victimization’ under the previous government.
The irony is that Gotabaya himself is cited by the OISL Report as ordering the army to shoot surrendering LTTE personnel who were indeed shot dead following his orders. He therefore had much at stake in founding this Godforsaken, evil Commission to ensure that he himself is not charged based on the precedent set by Karannagoda’s acquittal!
The Commission’s mandate was used to intervene in ongoing court cases, particularly those involving military officials accused of human rights abuses and corrupt practices in military and aircraft purchases, wrote Human Rights Watch (30 April 2021). The Commission effectively blocked the prosecution against Karannagoda and other military figures.
The three members of the Commission bathed in everlasting ignominy flowing fm their report are Retired Supreme Court Judge Upali Abeyratne (chairman), Retired Court of Appeal Judge Daya Chandrasiri Jayatilleka, and Retired Inspector General of Police (IGP) Chandra Fernando.
That tar brush of shameful ignominy resulted from August 2024 when the Supreme Court nullified the findings of the report. For that cover-up report by the 3 Commissioners, one is reminded of Sir (Saint) Thomas More’s rebuke to his protégé Richard Rich who was made Attorney for Wales for the false witness he provided to Henry VIII against More. Asked More of Rich, “It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for Wales?”
Where are the three commissioners today? What was their Welsh post if any?
It is equally edifying to Sri Lanka as a nation to do a parallel inquiry into why the two supreme court judges recused themselves, keeping in mind that Attorney-at-law Nagananda Kodituwakku has formally charged most SC judges with corruption, and when he demanded that they recuse themselves from his cases, they all refused. A thick judicial skin indeed!
As if in vengeance, Kodituwakku’s ability to practice law has been curtailed, just the way Justices Sarath Silva and Shiranee Tilakawardane suspended the late Elmore Perera citing his rude body language. It is on record that Tilakawardane with N.E. Dissanayake signed “I do” to the vulgar and contemptible “Helping Hambantota” judgement in which Chief Justice Sarath Silva effectively boasted of doing Mahinda Rajapaksa a favour and thereby demeaned the judiciary at the highest levels. As CIABOC goes after bribery and corruption in the judiciary, it has its work cut out or it.
In August 2021, the Attorney General’s Department announced it would not proceed with the charges against Karannagoda, leading to his acquittal.
In 2023, the United States sanctioned Karannagoda for gross human rights violations and prohibited him and his wife from entering the US.
In 2025, the UK also sanctioned Karannagoda for serious human rights violations. Pictured here are Admiral Karannagoda and his protectors, the Rajapaksa brothers. These two also have been sanctioned with travel bans.
Karannagoda Flanked by the Rajapaksa Brothers, his Masters and Guardians
Onus on President AK Dissanayake to Put Big Criminals behind Bars
People like Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Nalin Fernando, S.M. Chandrasena , Sathasivam Viyalenderan , Rajitha Senaratne, Shasheendra Rajapaksa, Keheliya Rambukwella , A.H.M. Fowzie et al. have already faced the courts. President
AKD is doing right. Let him proceed.
However, while Arjun Aloysius is being dealt with, prosecuting Ranil Wickremesinghe seems a lukewarm effort when we know little about the Central Bank Scandal and CIBOC’s going after Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake seemingly paying for an apartment involving Aloysius. And Arjuna Mahendran?
Charging Ranil, it seems to me is tokenism when there are far bigger crimes to investigate and bigger fish to net.
Everything Fortuitous or Divinely Providential for Karannagoda
AKD needs to explain honestly unlike his sixers about an immediate boat service from Mannar to Talaimannar and a stadium in Jaffna with no funds or water or environmental clearance clearance.The tendency to hit boundaries and sixers, is seen in his hit about the stadium on 1 Sept 2025 just a week before the UNHRC hearings on Sri Lanka – not to mention the prividential date of 15 Sept for Karannagoda’s trial also in the middle of the UNHRC which then again fortuitouly gets postponed to 30 January with no loss to Karannagoda! But AKD himself seems to be pulling wool over our eyes. What is happening to the Central Bank scandal? To his minister of finance and UNP colleagueRavi Karunanayake for a case filed on 17th May 2024 for accepting an apartment from Arjun Aloysius, a director of a primary dealer company.
And the really big fish, the Rajapaksa brothers against whom there seems to be much evidence for those who care to look; not least in diverting an aircraft to carry a puppy, the misuse costing a lot more than what Ranil is accused of misusing on his stop-over in London, however wrong that was. And the OISL report’s contention that Gotabaya ordered surrendering LTTE people to be shot and that they were?
Justice must be blind and its decisions repeatable – not saying enough evidence one day and the opposite the next. Let us get these investigations behind us and move on to building a nation where equality is the most supreme value that we cherish.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.