the only possible way of stopping Rajapaksa is to keep leading activists of his alliance in the custody.

FCID: Re-emergence of Nazi Gestapo

There is a police division widely known as Prime Minister's Police Division. That is not the Prime Minister's Security Division. It is the recently established unusual division which entertains only the complaints received from a Cabinet Sub-Committee headed by the Prime Minister. The official name of the division is "Financial Crime Investigation Division (FCID)" which was established by the IGP by publishing a regulation in Gazette on 13 February 2015. According to Paragraph 4 of the regulation, complaints can only be forwarded to it by the Cabinet Sub-Committee headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The IGP was cautious to mention in the regulation that the division was established consequent to a Cabinet decision in order to safeguard his personal reputation.

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Ceylontoday, 2015-05-17 02:00:00

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FCID: Re-emergence of Nazi Gestapo

By Udaya P. Gammanpila

There is a police division widely known as Prime Minister's Police Division. That is not the Prime Minister's Security Division. It is the recently established unusual division which entertains only the complaints received from a Cabinet Sub-Committee headed by the Prime Minister. The official name of the division is "Financial Crime Investigation Division (FCID)" which was established by the IGP by publishing a regulation in Gazette on 13 February 2015. According to Paragraph 4 of the regulation, complaints can only be forwarded to it by the Cabinet Sub-Committee headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The IGP was cautious to mention in the regulation that the division was established consequent to a Cabinet decision in order to safeguard his personal reputation.

Usually, anybody can directly lodge complaints with the police in any country. Strangely, people have been denied that opportunity in respect of this police division. Instead, they should submit their complaints to the Cabinet Sub-Committee. The Sub-Committee forwards the complaints to police division most probably after a filtering process. Hence, it can forward complaints only against the politicians who act against the government ignoring the complaints against the politicians who have expressed their loyalty to the government.

In the light of above, the Sub-Committee has the opportunity to discriminate the accused based on their political opinion. In terms of Article 12(2) of the Constitution, discrimination on the ground of political opinion is a gross violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Investigations should be carried out not based on the political opinion of the accused, but on the evidence available against the accused. That is why Gotabaya Rajapaksa has filed a Fundamental Rights application in the Supreme Court.

The present government sought a mandate to depoliticize the police department at the last presidential election. They promised to establish an Independent Police Commission for this purpose. However, the government has politicized the Police Department in an unprecedented manner by establishing this division. It is obviously violating its mandate.
The FCID has already exposed its partiality towards the ruling party. It failed to take action against politicians of the previous government who were allegedly involved in the drug and ethanol mafia because they have openly expressed their loyalty to the ruling party. Several corrupt politicians of the previous regime have opted for maintaining a dead silence at government's misdeeds which has in turn become a cover for avoiding investigations against them.

Central Bank bond fraud
The Central Bank bond fraud committed by the present government is the biggest financial fraud in post-independence history. The loss caused to the government is more than Rs 45 billion. Although the FCID goes behind trivial financial deals, it has purposely ignored or has been instructed to ignore the biggest fraud. That is because the main accused of the case, Arjuna Mahendran, the Governor of the Central Bank, is a strong supporter of the ruling United National Party (UNP).
There is a hidden political motive behind the establishment of the FCID. It is to make the opposition alliance impotent by witch-hunting its leaders. All opinion polls and surveys have confirmed the landslide victory for Mahinda Rajapaksa over the UNP and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) faction led by President Maithripala Sirisena. He has failed to turn governmental power into a political power as reflected in the May Day rally and District seminars organized by the SLFP. On the other hand, the alliance for Rajapaksa marches forward at a rapid pace without the support of the State machinery or foreign powers.

In the light of above, the only possible way of stopping Rajapaksa is to keep leading activists of his alliance in the custody. The government has formulated a smart strategy for it. According to the law, a Magistrate has no authority to grant bail for a person who has allegedly caused a loss to the State exceeding
Rs 25,000. When a suspect is produced before a Magistrate with such an accusation, the Magistrate is forced to remand him. Only a High Court can grant bail to the suspect after following a tedious procedure which minimally needs three months.
The assigned task of the FCID is to produce opposition activists with accusations of misappropriation of State property exceeding Rs 25,000. Availability of credible evidence to prove the accusation is not relevant at all. He will definitely be acquitted and discharged by the Courts after several years. However, they will have to spend at least three months in remand custody before being granted bail, fulfilling the requirement of the ruling party. The government can then hold the parliamentary election in the absence of stalwarts of the opposition.
In accordance with this plan, there were rumours that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Wimal Weerawansa and Tiran Alles would be arrested soon. Gotabaya prudently decided to challenge the legality of the FCID and his arrest resulting in a stay order preventing his arrest.

The government strategy is to imprison all opposition stalwarts before the election. It can be matched with tying hands of the opponent player before commencing a boxing game.
Basil Rajapaksa is the most known victim of the FCID. He was labelled Mr. Ten per cent by the opposition during the last nine years. He was portrayed as a corrupt politician who demands commissions for everything and anything. He was later arrested for an interesting allegation. When the Samurdhi Authority was converted to the Divi Neguma Department, employees were offered a volunteer retirement scheme. The Treasury was assigned to provide funds for payment of gratuity for the so retired employees. Since the Treasury was delaying the release of the funds, the Divi Neguma Department used its own funds for the payment of gratuity.

There were two reasons to make this decision. Firstly, the delay of the payment would make the employees inconvenient as they could not comfortably commence their retired life as they did not have any money in hand. Secondly, there would have been a penalty on the government for delaying the payment. Hence, the Head of Department used its own funds for the payment. When he was questioned by the FCID, he said that he was orally instructed by the minister to do so. That was the reason for Basil's arrest. The allegation was that of causing a loss of interest income to the government by using departmental funds without waiting for funds from the Treasury.

Johnston Fernando was continuously alleged of involving in the Ethanol racket. However, he was arrested and remanded for delaying a payment for credit purchases from the Lanka Sathosa. It is a government owned business venture and its management is authorized to sell for credit. When Johnston was arrested he had not only settled his dues, but also produced receipts for the same.

Failure to settle a debt is not a criminal offence. Hence, the creditor can sue the debtor for recovering the debt along with interest. The Court can order to liquidate his assets to settle the debt. However, he cannot be arrested for failure to settle dues. If it is so, all credit cardholders can be arrested in tens of thousands when they fail to settle outstanding balances.
The above two instances clearly establish the vicious intent of the FCID which acts with the ulterior motive of keeping opposition activists in remand custody for three months. The police are fully aware of the fact that all these suspects would be acquitted by the Courts in the end. However, if they are in remand custody during the election period, the FCID would meet the objective of establishing it.

There is no match to the FCID in the contemporary world. This can only be matched with Gestapo of Nazi Germany which was used by Hitler for witch-hunting his political opponents. Hence, the FCID can be identified as a leap forward towards a Nazi Government by the so called good governance practitioners.