Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris said the Attorney General’s Department had sought the death penalty against former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara and former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando on 855 charges, including allegedly abetting an unlawful omission of duty.
Speaking at an event in Colombo, Peiris said the case marked the first time in the history of the Attorney General’s Department that state officials had been prosecuted before a three-judge High Court Trial-at-Bar over alleged negligence connected to the Easter Sunday attacks.
Recalling that he had led the prosecution against the former IGP, Peiris said the special intelligence warning issued by the Director of the State Intelligence Service on 9 April 2019 had been forwarded by Jayasundara to four parties with only the notation “FNA”, meaning “for necessary action”.
“The court has provided guidance that ‘FNA’ should be used only for communications that do not require special attention and may be acted upon at the discretion of subordinate officers,” he said.
“If such intelligence is simply forwarded to subordinate officers and ignored, resulting in a crime, the senior officer concerned must bear primary responsibility. The time has come to completely end the practice of forwarding official communications marked merely ‘FNA’.”
Peiris said public officials receiving unlawful instructions should not hesitate to document who issued them, as they could otherwise be held fully responsible for carrying them out.
He said investigations conducted by the Financial Crimes Investigation Division into fraud and corruption involving politicians had revealed that many decisions had formally been taken by public officials, while politicians had been careful to avoid leaving written instructions.
Peiris also expressed concern that new legal principles and court judgments were not being adequately communicated to the public, particularly people living in remote areas such as Ampara.
He said victims often lived in fear, while sections of society tended to defend alleged offenders who possessed money and influence.
Peiris further said former IGP C.D. Wickramaratne, testifying during the trial, had described the use of “FNA” as problematic. According to his evidence, a subordinate receiving such a communication from an IGP would act according to their own knowledge and experience, rather than with the understanding possessed by the IGP.
