At no time has SF denied ‘white flag’ story: Sunday Leader editor
October 6, 2010 06:21 pm
Sarath Fonseka had never retracted the statement he had made to the effect that the Defence Secretary had ordered the killing of LTTE leaders with white flags surrendering to government forces, states the Sunday Leader editor.
Since then Army Commander Sarath Fonseka had repeatedly stated that Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had instructed that all Tigers, even those carrying white flags should be killed, the Sunday Leader had carried the story as its leader on page one, the weekend English paper Sunday Leader editor Frederica Jansz told the Colombo High Court when the ‘white flag’ case against former Army Commander and Chief of Defence Staff (then) General Sarath Fonseka was taken up for the second day today (Oct. 6).
Following the publication of the story, Mangala Samaraweera and Anura Kumara Dissanayake had requested her (Ms. Jansz) to publish a correction regarding the said news item as it would adversely affect Mr. Fonseka’s election campaign. However she had refused to carry a correction, Ms. Jansz told the three member bench of the High Court.
However, following a request by Mr. Fonseka, she had published a clarification in the Sunday Leader of December 20 last year, she said.
This particular clarification had stated that Sarath fonseka had told her though the Defence Secretary had issued an illegal order to shoot all surrendering LTTE leaders even if they carry white flags, no such leaders had surrendered and that all those leaders had died in fighting.
Ms. Frederica Jansz had further told court that even during these clarifications, Sarath Fonseka had never denied that white flag story. She added that Mr. Fonseka first told her on December 12 that he came to know about the white flag story from a journalist who was with the 58 Division of the Sri Lanka Army.
However, when she had discussed the news article with Sarath Fonseka on December 8, he had not told her so, she told court.
The notebook containing the details of the interview Frederica Jansz had with Sarath Fonseka was perused by court and further hearings were fixed for October 11.
