JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Douglas Devananda, a former Sri Lankan cabinet minister and longtime Tamil political leader, has demanded 100 million rupees in damages from the Tamil-language newspaper Uthayan, accusing it of publishing a false and defamatory account of his recent questioning by investigators.
The demand follows an inquiry last week in which Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department questioned Mr. Devananda over statements made by Hanzeer Azad Maulana, a former aide to Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, the former Tamil militant leader known as Pillayan.
In a letter of demand dated Sept. 25, Celestine Stanislaus, a lawyer acting for Mr. Devananda, said Uthayan had falsely reported that officers of the Terrorism Investigation Division, or T.I.D., questioned him for six hours at his Colombo office.
The newspaper also reported, according to the letter, that Mr. Devananda had been questioned at length about killings in the islands off the Jaffna Peninsula.
Mr. Devananda denied that account.
“He was never questioned by the T.I.D. of the Police Department, at his office in Colombo, for 6 hours,” the letter said. It also denied that he had been questioned at length by the T.I.D. about killings in the islands.
Jaffna Monitor reported on Sept. 24, citing CID sources familiar with the inquiry, that Mr. Devananda had instead been questioned by the Criminal Investigation Department at its headquarters in Colombo.
According to those sources, Mr. Devananda arrived at about 8:30 a.m. and gave a statement until around noon, a period of roughly three and a half hours. He remained at the premises for about another half-hour because of heavy rain before leaving.
Investigators asked about Mr. Maulana’s early relationship with Mr. Devananda and his connections with Pillayan and Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, better known as Karuna Amman.
One issue was Mr. Maulana’s claim that Mr. Devananda had introduced him to Pillayan. Mr. Devananda rejected that account, telling investigators that it was Pillayan and Karuna who had introduced Mr. Maulana to him.
Investigators also asked about Mr. Maulana’s claims that he had worked at Thinamurasu, a Tamil newspaper associated with the Eelam People’s Democratic Party, and that Mr. Devananda had helped him obtain a job at the Sri Lanka Cashew Corporation.
Mr. Devananda disputed much of that account as well.
The letter challenges Uthayan’s account of the police unit involved, the location and duration of the questioning, and its report that Mr. Devananda was questioned about killings in the islands.
The letter was addressed to E. Saravanapavan, chairman and managing director of New Uthayan Publication (Private) Limited, which publishes Uthayan.
Mr. Stanislaus accused the company of publishing “false, fabricated and misleading” information intended to damage Mr. Devananda’s reputation.
The letter demanded that Uthayan publish an unconditional apology and Mr. Devananda’s denial with the same prominence as the original report. It called for the apology to appear in the newspaper’s next issue and in three consecutive daily editions.
Mr. Devananda is also seeking 100 million Sri Lankan rupees in damages, payable within four weeks. The letter says that if the demands are not met, he intends to take legal action against the publishing company and its board of directors.
Mr. Devananda, secretary general of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party, represented Jaffna in Parliament for three decades and served in several cabinet positions.
Mr. Maulana came to wider public attention after appearing in Channel 4’s 2023 documentary Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings, in which he made a series of allegations about events preceding the April 21, 2019, suicide attacks on churches and luxury hotels.
Among his allegations was that he had arranged a meeting between members of the Islamist extremist network later linked to the bombers and Suresh Sallay, a military intelligence officer who subsequently became director of the State Intelligence Service. Mr. Sallay has denied the allegation.
