The Colombo Fort Magistrate today ordered Don Peter Nanayakkara, a Coordinating Secretary to Cooperatives and Internal Trade Minister Johnston Fernando, to pay compensation of Rs.11250 to the Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) after the latter pleaded guilty for causing damages to the glass door of the Finance and Accounting Office of the Sathosa building on October 26, 2012.

The case was settled before Fort Magistrate Thilina Gamage today as the complainant Vipula Kithsiri Silva,  Additional General Manager of the CWE, expressed willingness to accept compensation. The CWE had estimated that the Coordinating Secretary had caused a loss of Rs.3750 to the CWE. However, the Magistrate ordered the suspect to pay Rs. 11,250 as compensation.

It was earlier revealed  that the fingerprints obtained from an incident of property damage reported at the Sathosa main building in 2012, had tallied with the  fingerprints of Coordinating Secretary to Minister Johnston Fernando. This was revealed when the Police launched an inquiry into the incident where the glass door of the finance and accounting unit of the Sathosa building was severely damaged by an employee of the institution.

The coordinating secretary's fingerprint marks were in the database of Police Fingerprints Division as he was convicted for a crime 18 years ago.

The Slave Island, which began investigations into three suspicious fingerprint marks obtained from the crime scene at the Sathosa building, went on to tally those fingerprints with the ones in the Police  database. It was at this point that they realized that one set of fingerprints tally with those of the Coordinating Secretary of the Minister who overlooks Sathosa.