Boosa detainee challenges his arrest

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 September 2007, 14:08 GMT]
The Court of Appeal Monday issued notice on the Officer ­in-Charge of the Wattala Police and the Attorney General to appear in court on October 3 in regard to the bail application filed by a Tamil trader who has been detained in Boosa detention centre in connection with a complaint that he had concealed a claymore mine in a cupboard in his shop, legal sources said.

The bail application came up for hearing before a two-member bench of the Court of Appeal comprised Justices Sisira de Abrew and Ranjit Silva.

The petitioner cited the OIC, Wattala Police and the Attorney General, seeking bail stating that he has been detained with out any charges.

The trader Joseph Carmel Watson in his application said that the Wattala Police took him into custody on April 6 on an allegation that he had kept a claymore mine wrapped in a parcel in a cupboard in his shop. He was produced in Wattala Court next day with the parcel and later sent to Boosa detention camp in Galle. He is being detained for the last four months. The petitioner said, a person called Majeed, a Muslim, gave the parcel he kept in his cupboard. He did not know the contents of the parcel.

Having heard the submissions on behalf of the petitioner, the Court of Appeal directed the Wattala OIC and the AG to cite their reasons for the arrest and detention of the petitioner, legal sources said.