PTA and PSTA: A License to Detain Innocents at Executive Convenience
Photo courtesy of Roar Media
On March 24, 2025 President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in his capacity as the Minister of Defense signed a detention order to detain Mohamed Rusdi under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). He was released on bail after more than two weeks in detention with police acknowledging they had no evidence he has committed any offence. But a restriction order was served on him even after that, compelling him to inform the Counter Terrorism Investigation Division (CTID) of the police if he planned to change his place of residence, seeking their prior permission for overseas travel and reporting to them every week.
This is despite President Dissanayake having been a vocal critique of the PTA as an opposition MP and his 2024 election manifesto promising to abolish the PTA. Rusdi was amongst the 49 arrested under the PTA between January 1 and May 23 2025, an average of about one every three days. Many are believed to have been released as not guilty after languishing in detention and causing lot of suffering to them and their families.
Under the Ranil Wickremesinghe presidency, Wasantha Mudalige, a prominent student leader and leading figure in the 2022 aragalaya, was arrested under the PTA on August 18, 2022. He was only released on January 31, 2023 after more than five months. He was subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment while in administrative detention. In a landmark judgement, on March 19, 2026 the Supreme Court ruled that his fundamental rights to equal protection of law (article 12-1 of constitution) and not to be arbitrarily arrested (article 13-1 of constitution) were violated and there was no legal basis for drastic measure of arrest and detention under PTA. The judgement indicated that there must be basis for reasonable suspicion for arrests, that the PTA cannot be used against suspects of ordinary crimes and that vague allegations of terrorist acts or threats to public order that’s unsubstantiated, unexplained, inadequate cannot justify arrests under PTA.
The tradition of detaining innocents using the PTA
The list of those detained under the PTA under various presidents and governments and subsequently determined as not guilty by courts is long. Below are 11 lesser known examples.
Nadesu Kuganathan, had surrendered to the army in the last phase of the war (2009) and released after rehabilitation in 2013 after about four years. But after about three months, he was re-arrested (in 2013) under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). He was released after about eight years in detention without any charges.
Malcom Tiron[i] was arrested under the PTA in 2008 and he was released due to lack of evidence after about 13 years in detention. The trial has been presided by nine High Court judges.
Chandrabose Selvachandran was acquitted as not guilty in 2019, about 13 to 14 years after his arrest. He about 27 years when he was arrested. One indictment against him was for an incident that had happened when he was in detention. He was a cancer patient and died one and half years after his release.
Vasanthi Ragupathy Sharma was arrested in December 1999, charged and acquitted as not guilty in 2015 after more than 15 years in detention.
Anthony Chandra was arrested in 2008, charged and acquitted as not guilty in 2015 after about seven years in detention.
Ramesh was arrested in December, 2008 when he was just 18 years old and released in October 2011. In April 2012, he was re-arrested and in February 2015 he was released due to lack of evidence. In total, he has been in detention for about five years and eight months.
Angela Croos[ii] was 25 years old when she was arrested in August 2009 and was released after about one and half years in March 2011. No charges have been filed against her. She was denied healthcare in detention and was only given healthcare after his father obtained a Supreme Court directive. Her health had deteriorated rapidly while in detention and she passed away in October 2012.
Solomon Caspers Paul and Muralitharan Raja[iii] were arrested in May 2008, charges were filed against both and both were acquitted as not guilty in February and December 2011.
Nandakumar and Chitrakumar were arrested in April 2008 and released in August 2010 without any charges being filed.
Personal experience
Although nowhere as drastic as these and many others, I too experienced the trauma, fear and other consequences of being arrested and detained under the PTA. I was arrested on very serious but vague allegations that’s unsubstantiated, unexplained, inadequate of being involved in re-organizing the LTTE as well as aiding and abetting. I was also accused causing discomfort to the state and collecting money by giving information to other countries. I was arrested in Kilinochchi on a Sunday night about 10.30 pm in March 2014. That night, in between few minutes breaks of intense interrogation and while being taken away to an unknown place, I recalled the horror stories I have heard from other PTA detainees and was in great fear not knowing whether I would be tortured, disappeared, killed or languish in detention for most of my life. I later learnt how my elderly parents had been in fear and cried throughout the time I was detained while putting up brave fronts when they visited me and talked to others. I believe I was not physically tortured due to visits of multiple lawyers despite me not being allowed to see any of them and a visit by big team from the Human Rights Commission the morning after my arrest. Intense national and international media coverage and campaigns that started minutes after my arrest and continued throughout my detention would have contributed to my safety and was key in my relatively quick release. But my ordeal was not over after release. I was almost abducted at gunpoint, police obtained court orders restricting my overseas travel and freedom of expression and my iPad and hard disk were quickly confiscated. My traumatised parents were summoned to a local police station, which was only stopped after strong interventions from my lawyers. The case against me continued for nearly five years before the police, on the advice of the Attorney General, asked the Magistrate to release me due to non-availability of evidence. It took around 10 years and much effort by multiple lawyers (all pro-bono) to get back my electronic equipment that were confiscated. In meantime those who went to school with me, went to church with me, relatives and media had labelled me as a terrorist. Complaints to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka are pending after 12 years.
Tragedy of detaining innocents
Mrs. Sharma and Mrs. Chandra, detained for about 15 and seven years, had three children. Mr. Nadesu and Mr. Tiron who had been detained for 12 to 13 years had three and two children respectively. The social, economic and emotional difficulties young children would have faced, including the stigma of being children of “terrorist suspects” is unimaginable. The release as not guilty would have come far too late to mitigate all these. Mr. Paul’s child was born while he was in detention and had not recognised him as the father after his release.
Many of the detainees reported having being subjected to torture. Confessions obtained with torture or threats of torture were used as primary evidence against most of those who had charges filed against them and different courts have refused to accept such confessions.
The NPP and previous governments have done nothing to prevent or even do damage control to address the agony and pain of innocents detained under the PTA, their children, parents, brothers and sisters. We have not heard of any formal acknowledgement by any government or of survivors and their families being offered formal apologies, compensation, livelihood support, counselling and medical care. No one is also held accountable for these grave injustices. With some exceptions media, religious leaders, professionals and society in general have been complicit in these tragedies, sometimes by justifying, sometimes by covering up and sometimes by silence.
There have been people in detention for as long as 18 to19 years under the PTA without having their cases concluded and, in some cases, charges were not filed for 15 years. According to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, as of January 31, 2018[iv]about 15% of PTA suspects had been in detention for 10 to 15 years, about 41% had been in detention 5 to 10 years and about 32% had been in detention for 1 to 5 years without having their cases concluded.
PSTA: license to continuing the tragedy
Article 13 (5) of the constitution guarantees that every person is innocent until proven guilty but all those named and their families have been severely punished with up to 15 years in detention without being proven guilty by a court. There must be many others like the 13 mentioned above.
This tragedy is likely to continue if the government enacts the proposed Protection of State from Terrorist Activities (PSTA). Many more innocent persons and their families will suffer and minority ethnic religious communities and critiques will continue to live in fear.
Through Detention Orders (DOs) the PSTA, just like the PTA, allows the executive to decide what is terrorism, who is a terrorist and mete out de-facto punishment in form of detention without judicial discretion. There is no need for executive to wield detention powers and any detention must be by judicial authorities.
The government must release all political prisoners as promised in the NPP manifesto. The Attorney General can advise the police to release any PTA detainees not charged for several years and withdraw charges against those whose trials are not concluded even after many years of detention. The president must pardon those convicted under the PTA and in detention for many years, considering also detention periods before and during trials. Acknowledgement of harm done, apologies and reparations are essential to move forward and will require political honesty, humility and courage, which I hope President Anura Kumara has. There must be moratorium on the use of PTA, the PTA must be repealed and proposed replacement (PSTA) must be withdrawn. It is only then that these tragedies can be avoided in the future.
[i] Letter of September 4, 2021 from the Committee for Protecting Rights of Prisoners (CPRP) to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
[ii] Notes of organization that provided legal aid
[iii] Ibid
[iv] Prison Study by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, December 2020. Table 20.3, page 526
