Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Thursday said that he has become the victim in the alleged abduction of a Swiss embassy employee, who was reportedly threatened and sexually abused to disclose embassy-related information.
Rajapaksa said reports of the alleged abduction appeared in foreign media before the facts were established as critics accused his government of carrying it out.
“Now it is very clear. Actually in this case the victim is me, it is not that lady,” Rajapaksa said in comments to reporters. “It is very clear that it is a planned thing to discredit me and the government.”
Photo: AP
“Over the years they were talking about white vans and all the abductions. Now they want to say immediately after my election this was taking place,” Rajapaksa said.
The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs has called the alleged Nov. 25 abduction of an embassy employee a “very serious and unacceptable attack,” and summoned the Sri Lankan ambassador to demand an investigation.
It also criticized a lack of due process in the case.
Police have detained the embassy employee pending charges that she made statements to create disaffection toward the government and fabricated evidence.
Rajapaksa said that evidence collected by investigators does not match her account.
Swiss Minister of Foreign Affairs Ignazio Cassis on Wednesday telephoned Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Affairs Dinesh Gunawardena to discuss the case.
Cassis is sending diplomat Joerg Frieden to Colombo to help resolve the dispute over the alleged “security incident.”
A ministry statement on Thursday said that Cassis told Gunawardena that “the health and security of staff is of priority” to the ministry and the Sri Lankan authorities are responsible for protecting the staff.
Cassis also expressed regret that a judge had ordered the staff member put in investigative detention.
“The circumstances in prison do not consider her state of health,” the ministry said.
Gunawardena said that the Sri Lankan government has “fully complied with national law and international judicial standards, and that any assertion to the contrary was factually inaccurate.”
Rajapaksa became president after winning a Nov. 16 election. Shortly after that, Sri Lankan police investigator Nishantha Silva fled to Switzerland.
Silva had been investigating alleged abductions, torture, killings and enforced disappearances of journalists and activists when Rajapaksa was Sri Lankan minister of defense under the presidency of his brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been accused of overseeing what were known as “white van” abduction squads that whisked away critics.
Some were returned after being tortured, while others were never seen again.
He has denied the allegations.
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