COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A former Tamil Tiger fighter has told a Sri Lankan court that military intelligence officers detained him at an army camp after the civil war and instructed him to make telephone calls to the journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, who was abducted and disappeared months later.
Sumathipala Suresh Kumar, also known as Murali, gave testimony before the Homagama High Court, where seven Army intelligence officers are on trial over an earlier abduction of Mr. Eknaligoda in August 2009.
Mr. Kumar testified that he had been held at the Girithale military intelligence camp from 2009 until 2013 after surrendering to the military at the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war.
He said military intelligence officers gave him a mobile phone and instructed him to call specific numbers, including people overseas. He also testified about telephone contact with Mr. Eknaligoda.
Mr. Kumar has been a central witness in investigations into what happened to Mr. Eknaligoda, a journalist and political cartoonist who disappeared on Jan. 24, 2010, two days before Sri Lanka’s presidential election.
Mr. Eknaligoda has not been seen since.
His January 2010 disappearance is the subject of a separate prosecution before a three-judge Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar in Colombo, where nine members of the Army’s intelligence unit have been indicted.
The Attorney General brought 17 charges against the nine men in 2019. The indictment includes former Girithale Army camp commanding officer Shammi Arjuna Kumararatne.
According to the indictment, the nine are accused of conspiring with others unknown to the prosecution between Jan. 24 and 27, 2010, in Girithale, Koswatte and Battaramulla to abduct Mr. Eknaligoda. The charges include abducting him with the intention of secretly and unlawfully detaining him and causing his death.
The accused have contested the charges, and the allegations against them have not been established by a final judgment.
Investigators have long focused on Mr. Kumar’s contacts with Mr. Eknaligoda.
When charges were being prepared against the Army intelligence officers, prosecutors said their investigation had found that the military used Mr. Kumar to make telephone calls to Mr. Eknaligoda to obtain information about the journalist’s activities during the 2010 presidential election campaign.
Investigators also alleged that on the evening Mr. Eknaligoda disappeared, an Army intelligence officer contacted Mr. Kumar and told him that he had met the journalist.
Mr. Kumar’s evidence has itself become a contentious part of the long-running prosecution.
In the Colombo Trial-at-Bar case, prosecutors sought permission this year to recall him as a witness, saying he had previously provided conflicting accounts because of alleged threats and pressure from Mr. Kumararatne, the first accused.
Defense lawyers opposed the application and disputed the prosecution’s account. They told the court that a separate case involving the alleged intimidation of Mr. Kumar was pending before the Trincomalee Magistrate’s Court and had not been finally determined.
In July, the three-judge court allowed prosecutors to recall Mr. Kumar. The accused subsequently challenged that decision before the Supreme Court.
The Homagama proceedings in which Mr. Kumar has recently testified concern an earlier episode in Mr. Eknaligoda’s history.
The Attorney General has indicted seven Army intelligence officers over the journalist’s alleged abduction on Aug. 27, 2009. That case is distinct from the Colombo prosecution over his disappearance five months later.
Mr. Eknaligoda, who worked as a journalist, columnist and political cartoonist, was known for commentary critical of the government of then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
His disappearance has become one of Sri Lanka’s most prominent unresolved cases involving a journalist.
His wife, Sandya Eknaligoda, has spent more than 16 years seeking to establish what happened to her husband and pressing for those responsible to be held accountable.
Both cases remain before the courts.
