SRI LANKA: POLICE ACADEMY SUPERINTENDENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L COLOMBO 000397 DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2019 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PTER ASEC CE SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: POLICE ACADEMY SUPERINTENDENT ASSASSINATED IN THE EAST REF: A. COLOMBO 366 ¶B. COLOMBO 229 ¶C. 08 COLOMBO 1108 Classified By: Ambassador Robert O. Blake, Jr., for reasons 1.4(b,d). ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: H. L. Jamaldeen the Superintendent of Police (SP) of the Kalmunai police division was shot and killed on April 5 outside of a mosque in Kalmunai, Ampara District. Jamaldeen was also the Director of Kalladi Police Training College and USAID's main point of contact for a DoD-funded stabilization project under Section 1207 to improve policing capacity in the East. ¶2. (SBU) According to police sources, SP Jamaldeen returned to his home from Kallady Police College. He picked up his 14 year old daughter and they drove in his police sedan to the vegetable market to do the weekly shopping for the police cadets. While at the vegetable market, the daughter noticed two men following them and told her father. When their shopping was complete, they left by car. The two men followed on a motorcycle. The SP took a shortcut that led past a mosque. Near the entrance to the mosque, the motorcycle pulled in front of the SP. The man on the back of the motorcycle asked, "are you STF?" Jamaldeen responded, "No, I am regular police, you know me, I'm Tamil." The man on the back of the motorcycle then shot Jamaldeen once in the heart with a T-56 automatic rifle. Jamaldeen died on the scene. His daughter provided a description of the shooter and driver. The SSP of the Colombo Crime Division was sent on April 6 to Kalmunai to investigate. Theories Abound Over Who Was Behind the Hit -------------- ¶3. (C) The government, as it reported to news media, blamed an "LTTE pistol group" for the killing. Subsequently, Embassy personnel sought information from multiple sources, who provided various theories. The chief engineer for USAID contractor DAI (protect) told USAID staff that the T56 weapon used in the hit pointed to groups other than the LTTE, which likely would not have been able to move around freely in a populated area with a long weapon. The DAI contact believed it might have been an internal Muslim dispute that led to Jamaldeen's death. Police and intelligence contacts told the RSO FSN that they had a "strong suspicion" cadres loyal to Eastern Province Chief Minister Pillaiyan were responsible. These sources reported that Pillaiyan's forces had been "in dispute" with Jamaldeen for a considerable period of time. On the other hand, a local BBC stringer indicated to POL FSN that the location of the hit, in an area where paramilitaries answering to ex-TMVP leader (now Minister for National Reconciliation) "Karuna Amman" are dominant, was a strong indication that Karuna was probably behind the murder. Kalmunai police have yet to arrest anyone in connection with the murder, but expressed optimism that their investigation would eventually produce arrests. ¶4. (C) COMMENT: It is significant that, in contrast to the official report naming an "LTTE pistol group," none of our interlocutors thought it likely that the Tamil Tigers were in fact responsible. The conflicting theories concerning authorship of the crime are typical of the East, where a number of armed groups are in competition with each other. Human rights activists, journalists and international aid workers all continue to report that LTTE sleeper cells, pro-Pillaiyan TMVP cadres, and ex-TMVP (and now pro-Karuna SLFP) cadres, as well as government security forces, are implicated in varying degrees with the disappearances, extra-judicial killings, abductions and extortion that undermine stability in eastern Sri Lanka. As a result, the local population's security remains tenuous. The loss of a key contact is a setback for USAID's 1207 police training project, which focuses on rehabilitation of the facility Jamaldeen supervised and its subsequent use for training Tamil-speaking policemen. This initiative underpins our efforts to establish community-based policing techniques in the Eastern Province. BLAKE