TCT- News Desk Mar 13, 2025

Sri Lanka’s former Minister of energy and attorney, Udaya Gammanpila said that, the condition in which Suresh Sally, the former State intelligence Service chief of Sri Lanka is incarcerated is undesirable.

Visiting the latter on his family’s request on March 10, at the Colombo, Criminal Investigations Department, Mr. Gammanpila briefed the media about Mr. Sallay’s condition.

“I was the first person who had the opportunity to see him. So, at the request of his family, I went to see Suresh Sallay as their lawyer he said.”

He is in a very sad situation, “Sir, even if I was taken captive by the LTTE, I would not have been treated in this ugly manner, because the LTTE knew what I was doing for the country on the battlefield and I had the respect from the Tigers for that”, says Suresh Sallay, Mr. Gammanpila said.

While inmates from the underworld who are being held under detention orders in various rooms, yet Suresh Sallay has  been given a cell called the punishment cell in front of the toilet. Since it is in front of the toilet, there is a constant smell, and because of that smell, Mr. Sallay, who has a migraine disease, has had to double up on his medication.

Not only that, he has to sleep on a newspaper on the floor and rats and cockroaches come from that toilet at night, even then he can’t sleep on the floor like that, because the rats and cockroaches run over him and even his face. Additionally, someone who was previously detained in that cell has been bitten by rats and has developed a disease.

Further, he has no ventilation in that room, there is no sunlight, also he has nothing to do, and he says he is prohibited from talking to others.

He has been told not to talk much. Also, they do not allow him to read a single book nor give him even a newspaper.

He is been treated in an inhumane way than an ordinary prisoner. Our Constitution says that whether a prisoner or a criminal, he should be treated humanely.

Ever since, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s ruling NPP government commenced its crack down on the wrong doers from the previous regimes, Mr. Gammanpila has taken to the media voicing for them.

Proceedings to obtain a writ order for him before long are currently underway.

Also, it is my observation that he is in severe mental shock due to this inhumane treatment being meted out to him. Therefore, I have requested him to seek psychiatric treatment when he comes to see the magistrate. I also hope that the Director of the CID will refer him to psychiatrists, and I feel that he definitely needs counseling services Mr. Gammanpila furhter noted.

It is notable that Mr. Gammanpila visited Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyan at the CID on April 15, 2025, as his counsel, after Pillaiyan was detained at the CID under the PTA in connection with the April 21, 2019 Easter bomb blasts. As Pillaiyan will be completing one year in detention in three weeks, Mr. Gammanpila Said, that he wouldn’t want the same plight befalling on Mr. Sallay as well.