CB Ratnayaka's driver found dead at his official residence -- Updates 1

Coroner says, CB Ratnayaka's driver has drunk poison ....

  and hanged himself

The driver of former Minister C.B. Ratnayaka was found dead at the official residence of the Minister in Colombo on the 11th this month. 

The corpse has been found in this abandoned house and by the side of the dead body a vial of poison and a letter was found. What had been written in the letter was that, though he had been suspected by the former Minister as the person who had set fire to the house in Madiwela it says that he is free from any guilt regarding it and therefore because of disappointment he had taken his life in this manner. 

After a house in Madiwela belonging to the former Minister had been on fire on the 1st of the month it was totally reduced to ashes and after the said incident the driver had been missing and during this period he had written a letter and posted it to his householders in which he had stated that he was at the official residence in Colombo. However, when the brother of the driver had come over to the house he was not able to find anybody within this abandoned house. Subsequently with the aid of the police the lock was broken open when the dead body of this driver was found by the brother of the driver.

What has been subjected to suspicion is that even the former Minister had said nothing that the driver's body was there and whether there was any valid reason for this father of 3 children to go so far as to commit suicide over an indefinite suspicion. 

After evidence was called for day-before-yesterday (25) regarding investigations into the death, Mr. P.D. Perera, Additional Magistrate, Colombo gave a verdict that the cause of the death of the driver was that after he had taken poison he had hanged himself. Specialist Judicial Officer Mr. N.D. Chandana Perera who forwarded the coroner's report to courts returned a verdict of having committed suicide by hanging. The deceased driver, Suraweera Aarachchige Premasiri was a resident of Ragama area. Letters written by him to the former Minister, his own wife and Inspector General of Police have been forwarded to courts. The wife who recognised that the handwriting of the letters belonged to her husband and that she had no doubt about this death, had testified so in courts. 

In the letter written by the deceased he had said, "Even if I am taken to Deniyaya to be questioned ... I'll be tortured. It is better to die. It's not I who set the house on fire. What I suspect is that Ragala Jagath had done this".  

Police investigations in relation to the incident is still pending.The police conducting inquiries have called for relevant data from telephone Companies regarding calls received and calls given by the phone of the driver.

Previous news item of Gossip Lanka regarding the incident, from HERE