Tissa: 100 days in TID detention

Senior journalist and Sunday Times freelance columnist J.S. Tissainayagam goes into his 100th day in detention by the Terrorism Investigations Department today without formal charges being filed against him.

On Friday, he was produced before Colombo’s Chief Magistrate N. Hettiarachchi who ordered that he be further detained by the TID.

Mr. Tissainayagam’s lawyer M. A Sumanthiran said the journalist was being held in wrongful custody. He claimed that under emergency regulations a detainee had to be moved to prisons custody after 90 days.

The TID objected to Mr. Tissainayagam and other detainees being moved to prison custody citing Emergency Regulation 21 (2) of 2005.

Senior State Counsel Amendra Seneviratne said he needed time to consider these regulations, as he felt there was a contradiction between Regulation 19 and Regulation 21. E. Thavarasa, Counsel for V. Jasiharan and two others being held in detention, said the Detention Order of regulation 19 was not in question but it was the place of detention that was in question.

He said he was only questioning the place of detention and that Regulation 21 (2) clearly stated that if a person was detained for more than 90 days, the magistrate should order that the person was so detained in a prison established under the Prisons Ordinance.