Colombo Additional Magistrate Mrs. Rajinda Jayasuriya, who rejected the request of the President’s lawyer who appeared on behalf of the deceased to conduct the exhumation of the body of Janashakti Group Director Mr. Dinesh Shafter secretly, ordered the family to appear at the Borella Public Cemetery today to identify the body.
The Criminal Investigation Department informed the court yesterday (24) that Mr. Shafter’s dead body will be exhumed today at 8:30 am before the five-person expert medical committee under the supervision of the magistrate.
President’s counsel Mr. Anuja Premaratne, who appeared before the court on behalf of the relatives of the family, asked the court to allow the recovery of the dead body to be done secretly without opening it up to outside parties and to call the forensic doctor of the family to the place.
The magistrate stated that in such a situation where an independent committee has been appointed and decided to exhume the body without the support of any party, no order will be issued to interfere with it and she pointed out that problems may arise by calling the committee other than the doctors.
The magistrate also rejected the request, pointing out that after the body was exhumed secretly, there could be accusations that another body was exhumed and a post-mortem examination was conducted.
In addition, the court issued orders to the managers of private telephone companies to store the data contained in Mr. Shafter’s phones securely.
Here, the government inspector had reported to the court that three mobile phones given to him had no SIM card.
During the questioning by the magistrate in this regard, the President’s counsel said that the Criminal Investigation Department even took the unused mobile phone from Mr. Shafter’s house to the police.
In addition to this, the Criminal Investigation Department filed before the court the memorandum that sent the blood samples of Brian Thomas and others to the examiner.
The court has also issued orders to the five-member expert medical committee to conduct a second post-mortem examination of the body recovered today at the Galle Karapitiya Hospital mortuary within two days.
This five-member medical committee was appointed to determine the cause of death of Mr. Dinesh Shafter, who died on 15/12/2022, according to the powers assigned in Section 375 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.