Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, centre, attending the Conference of Attorneys General in the capital Colombo yesterday.
AFP/Colombo
Sri Lanka’s attorney general barred the country’s chief justice from attending a regional conference yesterday after allegations he tried to help the former president retain power illegally.
Chief Justice Mohan Peiris is under growing pressure to stand down after he was implicated in an alleged coup attempt by former president Mahinda Rajapakse, who lost power in an election earlier this month.
Sri Lanka’s bar association had threatened to boycott the Conference of Attorneys General, held in Colombo
yesterday, if he attended.
“We have a written confirmation from the AG (attorney general) that the chief justice (Peiris) was de-invited,” the head of the bar association Upul Jayasuriya said.
“We said we will walk out if Mohan Peiris is present, and that would have been a big embarrassment.”
Rajapakse appointed Peiris after impeaching the previous chief justice Shirani Bandaranayake when her rulings went against his administration.
New President Maithripala Sirisena, who was sworn in on January 9, has vowed to restore Bandaranayake to the role.
Police have opened a criminal investigation into claims that the defeated strongman Rajapakse tried to use military force to stay in power.
There was no immediate comment from the chief justice, who was with the president as the elections results began to emerge and is accused of trying to legitimise a state of emergency.
ARMY TO STAY IN NORTH: The new Sri Lankan government yesterday said it would keep the army stationed in the northern part of the country and give priority to national security.
Sri Lankan State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardena said that after President Maithripala Sirisena won the January 8 presidential election, there were several false reports that the army would be
withdrawn from the north.
According to a Xinhua report, Wijewardena said President Sirisena had made it clear from the day he won the presidential election that he will not allow the country to be divided.
There were concerns over a possible withdrawal of the army from north Sri Lanka after Sirisena won the presidential election, as he was supported by the country’s main minority Tamil political party, the Tamil National Alliance, which has been pushing for a reduction in the army presence in the north, following the end of the war with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The rebels were defeated in May 2009, but the former government had refused to diminish the army’s presence in the north.
Wijewardena said the new government would ensure that the security forces were treated with respect and given all the facilities they might require.
