by Cyril Wimalasurendre
KANDY — Kandy High court Judge DSC Lekamwasam hearing the Sri Dalada Maligawa LTTE bomb attack case on Thursday (11) said that he refused to accept, as evidence in the case, the confessions reported to have made to the Criminal Investigations Division police officer by the second and the third accused.

Judge Lekamwasam made this observation after having studied the submissions by the Senior State Counsel Buwaneka Aluwihare and the Defence lawyer A. Vinayagarmoothi at the previous hearings.

The court was told, on an earlier day, by ASP Clement de Silva of the CID, that the second and the third accused on their own made statements to him at the Colombo headquarters of the CID.

However, the defence lawyer A. Vinayagarmoorthi MP challenging the evidence of ASP Clement de Silva objected to any accepting the statements by the two accused since they made the statements under duress.

The submission of the prosecution and the defence were considered by the judge and court refused to accept the statements by the two accused as evidence in the case.

In this case, Subramaniam Ravindran (absconding), Muthulingam Jeevarajah alias Master, Muthulingampillai Dharmalingham, and Krishnasamy Ramachandran are indicted with several charges including murder, conspiracy and destruction etc., on or about January 25, 1998.

Senior State Counsel Buwaneka Aluwihare with State Counsel Ms. Haripriya Jayasundera appears for the Attorney General while Attorney A. Vinagarmoorthi appearing for the accused.

The hearing is proceeding.