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Thajudeen murder: Telephone records at PS erased

The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) conducting investigation into the murder of rugby player Wasim Thajudeen informed Colombo Additional Magistrate Nishantha Peiris this morning, that the telephone records on calls made from the Presidential Secretariat to the then OIC of the Narahenpita Police Damien Perera on the day of Thajudeen's death, have been erased.

At the previous occasion, the CID told Court that several telephone calls originated from telephones at the Presidential Secretariat Office and Temple Trees following the murder of former rugby player Wasim Thajudeen. The CID told Court the telephone numbers were being investigated. 

The CID informed Court that a statement by the Additional Secretary (Internal Administration) at the Presidential Secretariat Anil Wasantha Wanigasuriya affirmed that the telephone records on calls made from the Presidential Secretariat have been erased from its data system.

The CID said further that an additional director of the Information and Communications Department at the Presidential Secretariat had told the CID that these records had been erased by maintenance officials, who are currently not in service at the Presidential Secretariat.

CID investigations are being carried out on these officials and the CID has taken into custody a CPU device which stores telephones call records for further investigations, the cID told Court.

The CID informed Court that some Presidential Security Division (PSD) officers who served under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa are under investigation for giving telephone calls to the former Narahenpita OIC.

Meanwhile, Western Province former Senior DIG Anura Senanayake and former Narahenpita Crimes OIC Sumith Champika Perera arrested over their alleged role in the cover up of evidence in rugby player Wasim Thajudeen murder were ordered further remanded till September 7.

The suspects had sought bail from Colombo High Court through two separate revision applications.

On July 27, 2015 the CID submitted to Court that the death of Thajudeen was not an accident but a murder.

While delivering the verdict, Colombo Additional Magistrate Nishantha Peiris on February 25 this year ruled that the death appeared to be a murder and ordered the CID Director to immediately arrest all suspects involved in the incident and produce them before Courts.

Thajudeen was killed, apparently, in a road accident in Colombo in May 2012. The CID had informed court that investigations conducted so far had revealed that Thajudeen’s teeth had been broken, the bones in the pelvic region also broken and his neck pierced with a sharp instrument prior to his death.

The CID added that muscles in his legs had been cut with a piece of a broken glass. Earlier, police maintained that Thajudeen was driving to the airport and had lost control of his car and crashed into the wall of Shalika Grounds at Park Road, Narahenpita, and that his vehicle had exploded within seconds of that crash.