The Colombo Magistrate’s Court No. 3, presided over by Hon. Justice Pasan Amarasinghe, today delivered a final verdict in Case No. 4690/03/2008, acquitting and discharging both accused—Mr. Hemachandra Perera and Mr. Prabath Duminda Weerarathna, former Army Intelligence officers—of all charges brought under Sections 314 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 32 (common intention) of the Sri Lankan Penal Code.
The accused were alleged to have assaulted two individuals—reportedly journalists and a diplomatic staff officer—in a 2008 incident widely associated with state-linked “white van” abductions. The case, dormant for several years, resumed in 2023 following the suspects’ arrest and prolonged remand in 2017 under a renewed investigation led by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Delivering a comprehensive defense, Senior Counsel Shiraz Noordeen and Attorney-at-Law Farzan Mohamed argued that the prosecution had failed to establish the case beyond reasonable doubt. Central to the defense was the contention that the identification parade had been fundamentally flawed, as the accused were exposed to media coverage prior to the official identification procedure. The court accepted this submission, deeming the process compromised.
Testimonies from key witnesses further weakened the prosecution’s case. The primary witness (PW-01) admitted to mistakenly identifying members of the general public as suspects, while another witness (PW-02) stated in open court that he could not identify any perpetrator — a clear contradiction of his earlier police statement. Compounding these inconsistencies, the prosecution failed to present any qualified medical documentation to prove that the alleged victims sustained physical harm.
A decisive factor in the acquittal was the establishment of a verifiable alibi for Accused No. 1. The defense submitted photographic and documentary evidence showing that he was attending his child’s birthday party and participating in religious observances at the time of the alleged incident. This alibi went unchallenged by the prosecution.
In his ruling, Justice Amarasinghe emphasized that the burden of proof required under Sri Lankan criminal law had not been met. He noted that no evidence had substantiated common intention under Section 32, nor had the act of causing hurt under Section 314 been proven.
The CID had led the prosecution in this case. The acquittal is significant against the backdrop of continued investigations into similar allegations arising during the Rajapaksa administration,many of which remain unresolved.
