Champika meets Sumithra Peris and asks for pardon

Champika meets Sumithra Peris and asks for pardon

Former Minister Champika Ranawaka was subjected to blame for having made a speech in the presence of the media by openly

displayinga photograph showing Dr Lester James Peris; the said photo being changed or tampered with where K.P. had appeared together with the President Mahinda Rajapaksha.

After the incident Dr. Lester James Peris's wife Sumithra took steps to call for a separate meeting with artistes and expressed her protest.

What Champika Ranawaka has explained in respect of this incident was that one of those photographs was extracted by him from a website of the Government Information Department and the other from another website and that none of these were created on purpose.

What the former Minister had explained on the occasion was as follows: "The photos I showed at a media discussion where President Mahinda Rajapaksha and K.P. wre together were extracted from the internet. Though we are not in a position to accept responsibility over the accuracy of the relevant photos, we wish to hold ourselves responsible over the message we wished to convey. That message was a notification issued by the Presidential Media Unit that the President had on September 13, 2013 or on a date in proximity had met Kumaran Padmanathan on a tour he made to Kilinochchi which happened to be the background for the photos. This confirms that there had been some attachment between the President and K.P. 

After the death of Prabhakaran, leader K.P. was responsible for explosives and for bomb blasts at a time when Tiger terrorists were in action (1983 - 2009) and ultimately became the leader of the terrorist movement.

We consider it a grave humanist crime to give an opportunity for a criminal who is responsible for the attack on Sri Dalada Maligawa and attacks carried out by targetting bus passengers and through trains and crimes carried out on soldiers in addition to being issued a warrant by the International Police over the assassination of Rajive Gandhi to live in freedom like this. It is our standpoint therefore that K.P. be brought before justice without any delay.