The armed forces say that, lately, Minister Kadirgamar had preceded the President in the Tigers' hit list. Despite the fact, they express deep regret for having been unable to save him. Because the blame had been put on the Liberation Tigers as usual, not much interest is shown in the investigation of other possible connections.

Why haven't the State intelligence unit shown due interest and considered the fact that dangers would be greater in the case of a person afforded the highest security measures? Having provided greater security arrangements they assumed they had minimised the risk of dangers and had failed to see the big holes in their security measures.

The information available immediately after the attack on Kadirgamar were very much contradictory. The first one was that Kadirgamar was accompanied by his wife from the swimming pool and no one was aware of the sniper attack on him. His wife had assumed that he had fainted down but on close inspection had she realised that he had been shot down.

But Captain Manathunge, the officer in charge of Kadirgamar's security, in his evidence in the Colombo courts, said that Kadirgamar coming out of the pool, while going to collect his slippers, was struck by two successive bullets. They had fired shots in retaliation towards the place from where the bullets had come.

He further said they had shouted to Kadirgamar's wife who tried to rush to her husband's aid not to do so as the gunmen might shoot her too. There is a vast difference between the information available on the day of the incident and the Captain's evidence.

At the same time, while maintaining that the shots came from the upstairs of the house on the right side of Kadirgamar's residence and that they had returned fire in that direction, he had failed to say what actions they took to prevent the gunmen from escaping.

At the time of the attack there had been 20 special commandos on duty to safeguard Kadirgamar. Apart from these, there were more than 10, manning the watch towers constructed to ensure the security of the residence. None of these men had taken any step to prevent the attackers from getting away.

The attack was made from the upstairs of one of the neighbouring houses of Kadirgamar's residence. There is a distance of only 30 meters between the said house and the pool in which Kadirgamar had swum. Investigations indicate that the number of persons who had attacked could be two or more.

This upstairs could be reached by two ways. There are stairs to it both inside and outside the house. The gunmen had used the outside stairs to enter without the knowledge of the occupants and had escaped the same way after performing their job.

The owner of the house, Laxman Thalayasingam, a former senior police commissioner, had, on enquiry, told that they had not used the upstairs for more than an year. His wife ailing from paralysis is bedridden. There is no one in the house except this couple.

Among the houses that surround Kadirgamar's residence in Bullers Lane, only two have upstairs. But, it is Thalayasingam's house that sits directly against Kadirgamar's swimming pool. From no other house can one look into the interior of Kadirgamar's residence.

If any danger should happen to Kadirgamar when he is in his residence, it could only originate from Thalayasingam's house. There is no possibility of danger to Kadirgamar from the other neighbouring houses. The watch on Thalayasingam's house should have been strengthened when Kadirgamar was in the residence and thus any danger to him prevented.

But investigations reveal that neither Kadirgamar's security forces nor the intelligence unit knew anything about Thalayasingam's house. The armed forces came to know about the strategy of the neighbouring house only after the attack had taken place.

It was only after Kadirgamar's killing the armed forces learnt that only Thalayasingam and his bedridden wife were the sole occupants of their house. It was only after going there they got to know that the Thalayasingams had not used their upstairs for a long time. All the three rooms upstairs were closed and contained only used clothes and old furniture.

The windows of these closed rooms too were shut. If one opened the windows one could clearly see Kadirgamar's swimming pool. The gunmen had known that the upstairs bathroom door was open and the upstairs could be reached by the outside stairs. It is highly surprising that the armed forces had not shown prior interest in these aspects.

Kadirgamar owned this house in Bullers Lane and only this house has a swimming pool. Last year, in an interview to a foreign news agency, Kadirgamar had mentioned his great interest in swimming and had said that, time permitting, he swims at least a thousand meters daily or every other day.

The perpetrators had made good use of this information in their attack. Bullers lane house is his private residence while his official residence is at Wijeyarama Mawathe in Colombo 7. As there is no pool in the later, their intelligence reports may have let them know of a pool in the Bullers lane residence.

In the recent past, State intelligence analysts had said that the security risks for Kadirgamar were considered higher than those for the President and therefore he had been warned several times regarding his places of stay. At the same time he had been advised to use the Wijeyarama residence as it was very secure and situated in a safe place and was warned to avoid staying in the Bullers lane residence.

Present investigations reveal that the intelligence forces had issued this warning because of the sure safety of the Wijeyarama house and not because the Bullers lane residence was insecure.

Kadirgamar, the top ranking person in the Tiger hit list and a target with maximum security precautions cannot be easily approached close enough to attack him. Tigers attack such targets with their suicide bombers. Therefore his security arrangements were made in such a manner to counter suicide bombers. As Tigers had very rarely used sniper attacks there were not any measures taken in anticipation of such an attack.

The perpetrators were well aware of this. Either the Tigers knew well about this or the State forces did so. The armed forces have a thorough knowledge of the Tigers' strength, weakness and their modes of operation. Just as much, the Tigers too are well informed about the armed faces. This enables one faction to stage an attack after the fashion of the other and place the blame on it who usually is accused of such deeds.

The security precaution would be a little relaxed once Kadirgamar is in the pool because of its safe location inside the residence. Therefore any risks or danger while he is in the pool should have been foreseen and security measures made to meet such instances.

If the swimming pool is clearly visible from the neighbouring house, precautions to eliminate attacks from there while he is in the pool should have been made in full measure. This attack clearly indicates the grave errors committed in this context.

Again, it was only after a lapse of nearly two hours(11 in the night) after the attack, had the forces gone for investigations to the house from where the attack had been made. The owner of the house Thalayasingam had said so in the courts.

Captain Manathunge had said that they had immediately retaliated when the sniper attack had come from the upstairs of the said house. If so, why hadn't they not attempted to hasten to the spot to apprehend the gunmen?

The gunmen had dismantled the long snipers and had secured them in the bag they had and carried it away. They had also brought granite launchers to be used in case the sniper attack failed. But, anticipating the danger of taking them back, they had thrown them in the next compound before slipping away.

Kadirgamar's Bullers lane residence should have been heavily protected all around and the roads in the vicinity should have been manned with check posts at least when Kadirgamar was in the residence. Armed forces should have patrolled these roads. Because the gunmen knew well about this laxity in security they made their way so easily.

They had no possibility of coming out of the house after the attack and just walk away unnoticed. Because the place would surely be rounded up instantly they must have escaped on a motorcycle or some other vehicle.

Because the gunmen themselves knew not the precise time of attack (they had lain long), they would not have parked the vehicle of escape close by. Therefore it is evident that they had made arrangements for the means of escape after the attack. But no one suspicious had been reported escaping from the that area after the incident.

On the whole a VIP already placed on the highest security measures in the country had been killed so very ordinarily. The State intelligence unit had failed to foresee that such an important person could be targeted any time while the armed forces had failed to save him. These simultaneous failures of the Intelligence unit and the armed forces had been taken advantage of by the gunmen.

While the armed faces responsible for Kadirgamar's security are being intensively inquired regarding the failure in the security measures, more than a hundred members of the forces are to face interrogation as to why the intelligence reports about the flaws in the security arrangements were not provided.

Kadirgamar's killing clearly shows that the State intelligence unit is crippled because many of its cadres have been killed. It has been warned that if this situation is to prevail, the very security of the country may have to face great dangers in the future.

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