“As long as I was owner, all journalists (past and present) were afforded legal representation. I sold the majority shares and have no decision making powers anymore. All managerial and legal issues including settlement of cases are handled by the new majority holder. I suggest you ask Nigel Hatch PC and Frederica for further clarification.” sending an email to CT says Lal Wickrematunge.
Lal has sent the above clarification as a reply to our story which we published yesterday under the title ” The Inside Story: Sri Lankan Court Orders Frederica Jansz To Pay Rs 1 M To Ladduwahetty”
JULAMPITIYE AMARYA / May 7, 2013
BUT
LASANTHA WIKRAMATHUNGA DID NOT SOLD THE JURNALISM HE POSSED.
Is it the greed of money or the fear of loosing life?????????????.
/
AYMAN / May 7, 2013
WHY ARE YOU KEEPING THESE SHARES IF YOU HAVE NO SAY.
DONATE IT TO FREDRICA
/
Mahajara / May 7, 2013
Lal’s love is money and not journalism.
He got his price and he sold it.
He is now blaming others. Surely Mr. Lal
Wickremetunga – you could have ensured
there were guarantees to protect the
interests of the journalists when you sold
it? Or you did not bother about it because
you got your price.
That is after getting money to run your
newspaper from the UNP. You then called it
advertising for the elections.
Ask Harry Jayawardena and he will tell you
more stories than a newspaper can fill. How
blackmail forced people to loosen millions
and who benefited from them. That is the ugly
and darkest side of The Sunday Leader. One
day when it comes out, it will stink to high
heavens!!! It will be worse than the stink at
Meetotamulla.
/
Sunanda / May 7, 2013
You betrayed your brother. you betrayed fredrica. you betrayed all those journalists who were courageous and independent. all for money. what a sad sad man you are wickrematunge
/
P.B / May 7, 2013
Donate the shares to Chandrika . Poor thing has to sell bits of land to live.
/
Premlal / May 7, 2013
Talking about betrayal, I make a public challenge to Lal Wickremetunga.
There are many others who have been betrayed.
Ranee Mohamed, a journalist who has won several awards for The Sunday Leader was not paid for four months. Lal forced her out of office and thereafter did not reply to her letters. Nor did he answer phone calls from here.
Lal, can you say publicly through Colombo Telegraph whether you paid ETF and EPF to your staff including Reporters and Photographers.
You were selective. You used Frederica Jansz in many ways and dropped here like a hot potato. Who got foreign money at one time to pay the wages of your newspaper staff? Is it not correct that salaries are paid weeks late, in parts of three to four instalments. Why is this?
You now go to office and condemn the new management. But what you did in the name of journalism is unforgivable. This is not like the CWE, Lal. You were projecting that The Sunday Leader was a national newspaper.Is this the way a national newspaper behaves. Or is there one law (leading to your pockets) and another for your readers.
/
L Wickrematunge / May 7, 2013
I suggest all these comments be sent to Mr Ladduwahetty. All those who have comments to make should come to sri lanka and face the court cases etc and also go through 18 years of what we went through. I suppose it is always easy to comment without any responsibility or experience. That is true sri lankan style i reckon. Hmmmmm….I suppose they would be happy if another life is taken.
/
JULAMPITIYE AMARYA / May 7, 2013
L Wickrematunge .
oh oh ,
you think we all replying to you far from Seven Seas.
we most are in Sri Lanka and and most are in not metropoltan like you.
we can see, hear what is happening around our socity Man.
So you still trying to beat around the bush and misslead the readers.
you can’t run away from your SINS.
/
ONE / May 7, 2013
In your last article with niece on CT you clearly stated that you are a businessman. So in short you buy and sell like a shark.
But when you say “make should come to sri lanka and face the court” you are no more than the scoundrel warlord Rajaporkistan out to kill the messanger.
Lal keep on kissing rajaporkistans backside that is your karma.
/
Wickramasiri / May 8, 2013
Your comment is selfish and unbecoming of a Wickrematunge. Lasantha would not have said what you said. You are a disgrace. When you sell your business you ensure that the sales agreement stipulates that all liabilities inclusive of outstanding legal cases pertaining to the activities of the business are also taken over by the new owner. Did you ensure that?
The judgement made in this case, after an ex parte hearing, cannot hold water in Appeal. I am asking CT to publish the order of court so that we ourselves can judge how astute and reasonable that judgement is. Now it is upto you Lal Wickramatunge to support the case in appeal.
/
Rev.Devil / May 7, 2013
“Sunanda” !!!?? Oh !! If it’s the same Sunanda – former Convener of the FMM ?? then you have no say on ethical issues Mr.Deshapriya. You are not at all worthy to be compared even with the slippers of Wickramatunges. What you have to do is to come back home from Geneva to settle all the accounts of the FMM. Anyone can understand your anger over Lal, who stood by Fredrica in exposing your three million rupees corruption in the FMM. You raped the dignity of Journalism in Sri Lanka and your calculation about the victory of Fonseka proved your usually selfish and impolite mentality. Don’t continue to boast that there is a threat for your life. You guys are a curse for ethical life of any good.
/
Nihal Rodrigo / May 7, 2013
Mr. Wickrematunge. I am not commenting from overseas. I live in Colombo. I always have. And always will. Your betrayal of the journalists who worked for you and that includes your poor dead brother Lasantha and Frederica who paid the ultimate price for their dedication to the truth has long been a topic of conversation in Colombo. Unfortunately both these Editors had you for an owner and publisher. You continue to strut around Colombo engaging in wine, [Edited out] and song. Flaunting your new found wealth while Lasantha’s family, Frederica and Sonali have been hit with a thunderbolt. [Edited out]. But there is something called Karma. Maybe you think it can’t touch you. it will. it does.
/
gamini / May 7, 2013
I am afraid all those who blame Lal does not know the true facts. There is very little that Lal could do for the destabilising of the Leader by the Rajapaksas. If only they know what MR and his siblings have done to many in this country, just like what Premadasa did with Lawrence’s 4th floor, these critics will be amazed.
/
anura / May 8, 2013
how can you say Sonali,Frederica,Raine walked away with nothing?its so easy for people who only observe from the outside to make snap judgments.
Apart from what you read and hear you dont know whats really happening.
Im sure it is very hard on lal to have all this flack fall on him.
Dont add salt to the wound and lasanthas wife seems to be doing pretty well as far as shes concerned all i read is about her is winning awards getting book deals and what not.
do your research and stop judging the man
/
anura / May 8, 2013
Leave lal alone.
His buisness choices are none of anyones buisness but his.
People are so concerned about lal selling 72% but dont seem to speak up that much against the rajapaksas and what they have and continue to do.
/
Premlal / May 8, 2013
Ha Haa!! The artful dodger he is, Lal did not even taken up
my challenge. He wants us to refer all those questions to Nalin
Ladduwahetty. Why? He did not pay EPF and ETF of The Sunday Leader
employees.
Its funny that a stupid under the name of Anura has chosen to say
that Lal’s “business choices are none of anyone elses business but
his.” True? So, if he brings out a “national” newspaper that has
disgraced journalism than distinguished it, the people have no choice?
Is Anura living in the stone age and think that all Sri Lankans are
just egg heads? Or is this the voice of Lal and the hand of Anura?
[Edited out]
Anura is like the Emperor without clothes. When he walks the streets
in no attire, its his business and no one can say anything. This kind of idiocy even lunatics do not resort to.
/
Anura / May 8, 2013
lal doesnt need to answer to anyone of us certainly not you..ho are you or whats so important of you some nobody writing a little comment that lal should answer to?
You think Mr wickrematunge gives a flying shit about what some nobodies behind their computers obsessing over people and their work has to say.
Theres a lot more corruption going on in sri lanka than a chairman selling 72% of his org
go get a job man
/
Premlal / May 8, 2013
Arrogant Anura has said something profound. He
says “what some nobodies behind the computers
obsessing over people and their work has to say”
Lal does not need to answer. Certainly not to you,
he adds.
Is he not insulting the intelligence of all Colombo
Telegraph readers when he says that. Particularly so
when he suggests “got get a job man.” In other words,
are all CT readers jobless and people obsessed with
people?
Asinine idiots (perhaps its an insult to idiots) can
be purchased for dime a dozen from the money Lal has
received for selling his 75 per cent of his shares at
The Sunday Leader. Such flying shits are a bane of society
to say the least.
He is just what Dr. Mervyn Silva is to the UPFA government.
The sooner you learn that you cannot be a thug in cyber space
the better it is for you Anura. No one will care a shit for
you, not when you are made of it!!!! CT readers are intelligent
and have the right to say what they want. Who on earth are you
deliver sentence? What you have spewed out is bovine excreta.
Tell Lal to answer the many questions about Sunday Leader, Even
tody a group appeared before a Labour Tribunal without legal
reprsentation. The company was not represented. The LT President
said he would place the matter in Courts. That would take a month
full of Sundays and those who have gone for relief would be dead.
Whilst that was happening, who was changing Rolex watches and Benz
cars!! You stupid Anura, go find out.
/
Gonawala Sunil / May 8, 2013
Here’s little good advice for you
Anura.
Keep you might shut tight, get the
index fingers of your two hands.
Place them on your ears thus shutting
it.
Then go before a mirror. If you see
a monkey, you have identified who you
are.
/
Gonawala Sunil / May 8, 2013
My last message should read s “Keep your mouth shut”
and not “might shut.”
/
TheSundayLeader / May 9, 2013
We have been reading Lal’s attempt to defend himself and laughing our asses off. [Edited out]
Part of this comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our Comment policy.For more detail see our Comment policy
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/comments-policy-2/
/
Janaka W / May 9, 2013
What you and Frederica did to the Sunday Leader employees will come back on you. Both of you shared the money and now you are trying to play the innocent. [Edited out]. Frederica is a mad case. She has defamed many people but she got it back when she defamed Nalin Laduwahhety. [Edited out]
/
Premlal / May 9, 2013
Not only that Janaka W. Frederica is now paying
for her sins though she got a good amount from
Asanga Seneviratne. It was two years salary and
other emoluments amounting to some 3 million rupees
before she quit. Then Lal gave her a share from the
sale.
You can hide in a foreign soil and now start writing
books maligning everyone. [Edited out]
/
Josse / May 9, 2013
Lal is the only one who thought the sun shone out of Frederica’s face. She was hated by all
who knew her well. She was like a cannibal, eating her own kind. When internationally-acclaimed, exclusive columnist Iqbal Athas won an award for his contribution to the profession down the years, Frederica wrote against it. Iqbal Athas is a veteran, respected by CNN and newspapers in New York and Washington, among others. But Iqbal Athas, never wasted his time replying to her. She also wrote about the respected ‘gentleman editor’ Sinha Ratnatunga whom everybody respects and loves. And he was a gentleman enough not to reply her cooked-up insults. She attacked him because she did not get an award. Mr. Ranatunga was a
member of the Editors Guild and she is angry with all the members of the editors guild becuase she was not given an award for her Sarath Fonseka article. She also lodged a police against respected journalist Amal Jayasinghe saying he ‘lost her file entries for the awards.’ But she found them later on a table in office. Frederica wanted to decide who gets the awards. She would have killed for one, but she never got what she wanted. She even wrote about Sunil Jayasekera of the FMM about some allegations when he was working in her same office. [Edited out]
/
Premlal / May 10, 2013
[Edited out]
Time the Government appoints a Commission of Inquiry. I
can produce evidence to show how truth was subverted to
suit the needs of Lal and Frederica. I can also produce
irrevocable proof of who planted some news reports that
were scandalous. She called them exclusive.
Part of this comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our Comment policy.For more detail see our Comment policy
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/comments-policy-2/
/