Sri Lanka hunts for police chief over deadly raid

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan police were searching for their chief on Sunday after a court order for his arrest was issued over the killing of an officer during a botched raid, an official said.

Inspector-General of Police Deshabandu Tennakoon has been missing since a magistrate in the island’s south ordered his arrest on Friday, following allegations that he had ordered the raid on December 31, 2023.

“We went to his home to carry out the arrest warrant but he had gone into hiding, leaving behind his bodyguards,” a senior officer said.

He said the court had also imposed a foreign travel ban on Tennakoon, 53, to stop him from leaving the island.

Tennakoon ordered a unit from Colombo to search a hotel in Weligama, a resort town about 150 kilometres (95 miles) south of the capital, for illegal drugs.

Local police, unaware of the undercover operation, confronted the unit from the capital, sparking a gun battle in which one officer was killed and another critically wounded. No drugs were found at the hotel.

Tennakoon was controversially named as police chief in November 2023 but his appointment was challenged in the Supreme Court, which suspended him in July pending the completion of a hearing.

He was given the top job despite the highest court finding in a separate case that he had tortured a suspect in custody by rubbing menthol balm on his genitals.

The court had ordered Tennakoon to pay half a million rupees ($1,600) to the victim but the government at the time ignored judicial orders to take disciplinary action against him.