The Supreme Court today (15) granted permission to hear an appeal petition filed by the parents of 11 youth who were allegedly abducted and disappeared in 2008 from Colombo and surrounding areas.

The petition requests that the decision made by the Attorney General to remove former Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda—who had been named as a suspect in the case—be declared invalid.

The order was issued after a lengthy consideration by a bench of the Supreme Court consisting of Justices Arjuna Obeyesekere and Sampath Wijeratne.

The Court has scheduled the hearing of the appeal petition for January 30.

According to the petitioners, in 2008, 11 youth from Colombo and nearby areas were abducted and subsequently disappeared. In connection with these incidents, the Attorney General in 2019 filed a case before the Colombo Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar against 14 individuals, including former Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda and members of the Navy’s intelligence unit.

However, during the hearing of the case before the Trial-at-Bar, the Attorney General decided to remove the name of former Commander Wasantha Karannagoda—who had been named as a suspect in the case.

Challenging this decision, the petitioners submitted an appeal to the Court of Appeal, but that petition was rejected.

The petitioners pointed out that the Attorney General had originally decided to name former Navy Commander Karannagoda as a suspect based on sufficient evidence against him. Therefore, they argue that removing him from the case is unlawful.

They claim that this arbitrary action by the Attorney General violates the law, and they have requested the Supreme Court to invalidate the decision to remove former Commander Wasantha Karannagoda as a suspect in the case concerning the alleged abduction and disappearance of their children.