I have no white vans - Gotabaya

Former Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, addressing an ‘Eliaya’ conference in Udunuwara, claimed that he owns no white vans.

They received many criticisms when they were defeating terrorism by bringing about discipline, he said.

Rajapaksa says that back in the times of ‘87, ‘88, ‘89, the intelligence units of the country used internationally accepted tactics to fight against terrorism. These intelligence officers never engaged in political revenge or gained revenge from innocent persons, he pointed out.

He says that he is proud to say that it is not a secret that a majority of the intelligence officers working back in the day were Muslims. However, due to mistakes of a previous government, many of those officials were killed in Colombo.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa further said the service of those intelligence officers was the reason behind defeating the terrorism.

The current government is acting against these officers, he added.