Despite the Good Governance administration finishing three years of its five-year tenure last month, 37-year-old Wazir Ahamed, a Director of a company belonging to the family of the powerful Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Minister – M. H. M. Fowzie, who pledged allegiance to President Maithripala Sirisena; claims that assault, death threats against him, his co-complainant and his family members and intimidation of Police officers in executing their lawful duties emanating from the Minister’s family have gone unfettered and have proved nothing but otherwise.

AHM Fowzie

Ahamed told exclusively Colombo Telegraph that with degrading good governance and rule of law and increasing intimidation, he has very little hope in law enforcement (i.e. the Police) despite his co-complainant – no less than the granddaughter of Minister A. H.M. Fowzie – Fathima Hafsa’s case against repeated acts of criminal intimidation by the Minister’s family, will come up in Magistrate Court no 03 this Friday (9 February).

“In fact my case too is coming up in March, but from the actions taken by the Police so far and personally seeing the helplessness of the Narahenpitiya OIC, we can’t expect much despite the Minister Fowzie being a senior member of the Good Governance administration. Our plea is allow course of justice to take place without any hindrance just as pledged by the crusaders of good governance,” lamented Ahamed.

He claims that although several complaints had been lodged by him and Attorney-at-Law Fathima Hafsa (no less than the granddaughter of Minister A. H.M. Fowzie) against repeated acts of criminal intimidation and threats during the last two years, the Police are unable to take action because they were lodged against a daughter, two sons and other family members of the minister.

A complaint lodged by Attorney-at-Law Fathima Hafsa recorded at CIB 179/64 at the Narahenpita Police Station on 12^th January 2017, states that her uncle Namaz Fowzie intimidated and influences Police personnel preventing justice being meted out to her and Wazir Ahamed.

According to the complaint, her ex-husband Dr. Muhammed  Shazli Mowjood arrived at her residence and office of OSH Holdings (Pvt) Ltd. (of which the complainant was the largest shareholder and a Director) in order to pick their son at 1PM (two hours later than the time permitted by court) had  begun an altercation with the other Director and Co-complainant Wazir Ahamed, refusing to move his vehicle from the entrance.  According to the complaint, after verbally abusing Ahamed, Dr. Mowjood stormed into the house, began to throw things about and finally ended up striking his ex-wife and complainant (Fathima Hafsa).

According to the complainant, the strangest turn of events is that despite the Police offers who arrived at the scene witnessed the disarrayed living room and also scars visible on the face and body of Hafsa; the Narahenpita Police vehemently refused to include anything about the scars as the family of the Minister feared an immediate arrest, undoubtedly due to influence from Minister Fowzie’s son and her uncle – Namaz Fowzie.

Thereafter finally though legal action was initiated under Magistrate Court no 03 at Hultsdorf, under case no MC 75737/03/17 against Mohamed Nauzer Fowzie of No xxx Buller’s Road, Colombo 07, his sister Narmila Fowzie of No xxx, 27^th Lane, Inner Flower Road, Colombo 03, and two thugs brought in by them, namely- Zeinu Mohamadu Anver Sadar of No 06, Agarawatte, Horambawa, Narammala and Lebbe Mohamed Mahir of Kekunugolla, Narammala, charging them for criminal intimidation under Section 486 of the Penal Code (read with Sec 32) threatening complainants Wazir Ahamed on 15^thSeptember 2016  and Fathima Hafsa with death; none of the assailants had been arrested so far.

Despite  legal action being initiated by Ahamed and Hafsa, members of the Ministers family continue to harass and threaten the two complainants and their family members.

Wazir Ahamed claims that although he was assaulted in front of the OIC of the Narahenpita Police and both Narmila and Nawzer Fowzie uttered threats stating that they ‘will kill Ahamed’ and that ‘no Police or judge can save him’ adding that the ‘government is theirs and all these people work for them’.

Previously, after several threats by  daughter of Minister Fowzie- Narmila Fowzie, a complaint was lodge by Wazir Ahamed recorded at CIB I 207/285 at the Narahenpita Police Station on 27^th August 2016 and after neglecting and ignoring  repeated notices by Police, Narmila and her brother Nauzer Fowsie who arrived at the Police Station allegedly  threatened both Ahamed with demanding the Police to settle the matter.

Speaking to Colombo Telegraph, Ahamed said that he and the granddaughter of the Minister who is the other co-complainant, only wanted Rule of Law upheld and justice being meted to him and Hafsa as both President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have repeatedly announced that no political interference would be allowed to tamper with Rule of Law and the independence of the judiciary.

He added one of the reasons for increased intimidation is that he is privy to the hedging deal that happened when Minister Fowzie had the portfolio of Petroleum and Petroleum Resources Development and siphoning of money to offshore accounts of parties with vested interests.

According renowned Central Banker –  T. Rusiripala, the fraudulent Petroleum Hedging Deal led to the total loss estimated as Rs. 10,200.4 million according to a COPE (Committee on Public Enterprise) report submitted to Parliament in August 2016. Fortunately a claim of a sum of a staggering US$ 192 million (approximately Rs. 28,224 million) by Citi Bank filed at the London High Court of International Arbitration was rejected on the basis that the transactions were ‘fully flawed’, which otherwise would have increased the loss by250% times the loss estimated by the COPE.

“We are not talking politics but this is the money of the ordinary citizen. Just as the government arrested the suspects behind the Bond Scam, authorities should investigate and arrest the masterminds behind the infamous hedging deal. As I said, we don’t want politics but only justice, Rule of Law and Good Governance,” he said.