Sri Lanka Internet disruption said not caused by Indian ship

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 August 2004, 11:52 GMT]
Sri Lanka Telecom Thursday decided to withdraw its case against the Indian ship accused of severing the island's main link to the Internet after conclusive evidence that the vessel had nothing to do with the damage caused to submarine fibre optic cable landing point last Saturday night. The Indian ship, MV State of Nagaland, was nine nautical miles away from the Mt. Lavinia Landing Point at the time of the incident, lawyers representing the vessel's owning company said.

The decision was taken outside courts after discussions between SLT officials and lawyers representing the Indian ship's owning company who examined the evidence of the damage to the landing point which was gathered by the cable repair ship Asean Explorer. The parties also heard the opinion of an expert from Singapore who studied the evidence.

The Colombo law firm, Murugesu and Neelakandan appeared for the owning company of MV State of Nagaland.

The case was taken up in the admiralty Court Thursday before Justice Sarath Ambepituya.

The judge instructed Sri Lanka Ports Authority to release the ship that was detained on Monday.