{"id":101419,"date":"2013-08-20T17:01:37","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T11:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=101419"},"modified":"2013-08-27T00:23:14","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T18:53:14","slug":"human-smuggling-four-sri-lankan-navy-members-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/human-smuggling-four-sri-lankan-navy-members-arrested\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Smuggling: Four Sri Lankan Navy Members Arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four members of the Sri Lankan Navy have been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle more than 100 asylum seekers to Australia, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/\">the Age<\/a><\/span> reported today.<\/p>\n<p>Navy spokesman Commander Kosala Warnakulasuriya has confirmed that police are investigating the role of three sailors and one &#8221;civilian attached to the navy&#8221; in organising the boat voyage of a group of asylum seekers who were arrested last week trying to leave Sri Lanka for Australia.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_101420\" style=\"width: 404px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/human-smuggling-four-sri-lankan-navy-members-arrested\/gota-jj\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-101420\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-101420\" class=\" wp-image-101420 \" title=\"Gota JJ\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Gota-JJ.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"394\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Gota-JJ.jpg 656w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Gota-JJ-300x167.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-101420\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Secretary to the Defence, Chief of Defence Staff and Commander of the Navy<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">The three sailors are understood to be members of the navy&#8217;s signal branch. A van belonging to the suspects was reportedly seized, too, along with bank receipts for 1 million rupees ($8000).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The sailors have been taken into custody pending charges of assisting illegal emigration.<\/p>\n<p>The 111 asylum seekers &#8211; 46 men, 20 women and 45 children &#8211; were arrested on board the fishing trawler Rwan Putha in seas off Galle, on Sri Lanka&#8217;s southern coast, last week.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">In March, Fairfax Media exclusively reported that navy sailors and officers were widely believed to be complicit in, and profiting from, people-smuggling rings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Prominent Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Suresh Premachandran said: &#8221;I believe some navy personnel are involved in this smuggling.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fellow TNA MP and leading Sri Lankan lawyer, M. A. Sumanthiran, said the navy&#8217;s involvement was common knowledge across the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221;There is no doubt there is a level of naval complicity in the people smuggling,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221;It is quite clear that some people are given the chance to go through, and we have even heard of stories where the navy has escorted boats out of Sri Lanka&#8217;s territorial waters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The allegations of naval complicity were raised directly with Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr when he visited Sri Lanka in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":101420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2187,1,6969,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-most-popular","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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