By Shehan Chamika Silva
Colombo Chief Magistrate Lal Ranasinghe Bandara confirmed that the case productions (passport and National identity cards), relating to the inquiry conducted against Sashi Weerawansa over allegedly obtaining a forged passport submitting fraudulent details, had not gone missing but were in the possession of Court Production Officer.
Reprimanding the CID, Chief Magistrate explained that the CID officer had recklessly requested court productions of case from the Chief Registrar but at the time the case productions were with the case production officer of Chief Magistrate’s Court Complex.
The Magistrate ascertained that due to the irresponsibility and not following procedural aspects properly before complaining such allegation the CID officer had defamed the court staff setting false news to the Media.
The Chief Magistrate further observed that disclosure of such false information in open court could lead general public to lose the faith on independence of the judiciary.
Meanwhile, the Trial of the two cases initiated yesterday before the Chief Magistrate following seventh witness of the case, Department of Registration of Persons, Assistant Commissioner Indika Kumara Herath delivered evidence before Chief Magistrate.
Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris questioned the witness regarding the inquiry which had been carried out by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to check out obtaining two national ID’s by Shashi Weerawansa from the department.
While producing the evidence, Mr. Herath said that during the inquiry the CID had checked the index card records and had identified there were two national ID’s for Shashi Weerawansa.
Deputy Solicitor General had submitted the certified copy of the index card record before the Chief Magistrate but Anil Silva (PC) had made his objections.
He mentioned the prosecution party should submit the original of the index card record along with the certified copy.
Subsequently, the Colombo Chief Magistrate had overruled the objections made by the defence party and allowed to continue prosecution’s questioning.
The Magistrate fixed the further trial for June 22 and issued summons on three witnesses in courts on next date.
There were two separate cases filed against her on two counts for possessing an illegal diplomatic passport (B 22555) and submitting false details about her name and birth date to obtain fraudulently a diplomatic passport (B 60893).
The prosecution had charged the suspect for committing offences fell under section 45(1) and (a) of the Immigration Act during the time period of September 13, 2010 to February 26, 2015.
According to the CID, Sashi Weerawansa -alias Ranasinghe Randunu Mudiyanselage Sehasha Udayakanthi (No.74 J, Mangala Mawatha Hokandara)- was alleged to have possessed two identity cards and two passports obtained by submitting forged documents.
The CID investigations had revealed that the suspect had obtained two identity cards bearing numbers 675320233V and 715346469V and two passports bearing numbers N 1284124 and D 3642817.
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