Alleged conversations of DIG Nalaka Silva: Recordings to Singapore for analysis

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) may seek a court order to send recordings of an alleged conversation between TID DIG Nalaka Silva and a police informant to Singapore for expert analysis, the Sunday Observer learns.

The police informant, Namal Kumara who calls himself Director Operations of an anti-corruption force, has accused the senior cop of plotting to assassinate the President and former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

According to CID sources, this is to verify the conversation using state- of-the-art technology, which would be vital in future investigations.

Several high ranking police officials are also set to complain to the National Police Commission, saying that their lives are at risk according to revelations made in the audio recordings.

The man accusing TID DIG Nalaka Silva of the plot to assassinate the VIPs is a self-proclaimed police informant since 2017.

He also claims to have been a member of the Presidential Task Force on Drug Prevention since 2015. Kumara claims to have been recruited for awareness raising programmes in remote regions of the country by the Director of the Task Force, Dr. Samantha Kithalawarachchi.

In a series of interviews over the past week, Kumara has made several revelations about himself.

He told a Sinhalese weekly that DIG Nalaka de Silva had made several payments to him for information that assisted the TID to nab suspects in the Digana violence, and the attack on a Rohingya refugee safe house in Mount Lavinia.

“For providing information to the TID about the raid on the Rohingya safe house and the violence in Digana, I received two payments of Rs 500,000,” Namal Kumara, who calls himself the executive director of the anti-corruption force, told the Sinhalese weekly newspaper. “Cheques written in favour of Nalaka de Silva were given to me,” he added.

Asked why he did not have audio recordings of the alleged instructions by the TID DIG pointing to a plot to assassinate the VIP politicians, Kumara responded that he had erased part of the recordings of conversations with the DIG out of fear. Pressed as to why he did not simply store the recordings digitally for safekeeping, Kumara told the newspaper that he had been in a temple at the time. “I erased them in panic,” he added.

Kumara also admits to have protested against attempts by the Government to relax taxes on beer and other ‘soft’ alcohol outside the Sacred Temple of the Tooth in July 2017. “A secretary to the President called to tell me that as long as President is around, such a thing will not be allowed to happen,” Kumara said, after which he called off his protest. The informant also admitted in interviews that he had a relative working at the TID.

According to Kumara, the TID DIG informed him that the help of notorious underworld criminal Makadure Madush could be sought to carry out the assassinations.

Although Kumara released audio recordings of conversations regarding other matters discussed with DIG De Silva, he has so far not produced a recording of the alleged plot. Kumara has first met Silva during a discussion with IGP Pujith Jayasundara, and they continued to meet during several other occasions where Silva sought Kumara’s assistance.

Even the arrest of Amith Weerasinghe was carried out in this manner, Kumara says.

(Source: Sunday Observer)