by Durga Velayudham
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has extended the detention of former State Intelligence Service chief Major General (Retd.) Suresh Sallay for another 90 days under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. There should be no euphemism about what this means: a president who came to power promising political change is now using an extraordinary instrument inherited from Sri Lanka’s old political order. Sallay was arrested on 25 February 2026 in connection with the investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks and has remained in custody since then. Six months have now passed. During that period, his health deteriorated significantly: after beginning a hunger strike over his detention and alleged treatment in custody, he was admitted to the National Hospital, transferred to its Cardiology Unit after a heart-related medical emergency, and later underwent a cardiac procedure in which an Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator was implanted. His family has also alleged torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in custody; a court subsequently ordered a specialist medical board to examine those allegations.
The latest order keeps him in custody for another 90 days while investigators continue questioning him. The detention order was obtained by the Criminal Investigation Department under Section 9(1) of the PTA pursuant to an order by the Minister of Defence, a portfolio also held by President Dissanayake. The President is therefore not a distant observer of this process. His authority is directly connected to the continuation of Sallay’s detention.
That is why this case must be examined beyond the allegations against Sallay. The Easter Sunday attacks were a national catastrophe and must be investigated fully. No former intelligence chief should be above investigation because of his former position. But the gravity of the attacks cannot give any government a blank cheque for prolonged detention. If there is evidence against Sallay, it should be presented in a proper judicial process. If there is sufficient evidence to prosecute him, he should be prosecuted. What cannot become normal is detention without trial being sustained simply because an investigation remains unfinished. An investigation is a means of establishing a case; it cannot become the justification for indefinitely postponing the need to establish one.
This is the deeper problem with the PTA. Introduced as an exceptional counter-terrorism measure, it became one of the most enduring instruments of exceptional state power in Sri Lanka. Successive governments have used it against different groups and individuals in different political circumstances. The PTA has long been criticised for arbitrary detention, torture, forced confessions, custodial abuse and serious violations of due process, while its continued use remains deeply controversial. The history matters because Dissanayake is not operating in a vacuum. He has inherited a law with a long record of controversy, and by using it he also inherits the responsibility for everything that its extraordinary powers represent.
That makes the President’s decision particularly difficult to reconcile with the promise of political change. A government cannot condemn the abuses associated with previous administrations while retaining the same machinery of exceptional detention and then using it itself. The identity of the detainee does not alter the character of the power. The PTA does not become less dangerous because a different president is behind its use. If anything, the real test of political change is whether a new government is willing to surrender or restrain powers that were convenient to its predecessors.
The Sallay case is therefore larger than Sallay himself. He once headed the State Intelligence Service, one of the most powerful institutions in Sri Lanka’s security apparatus. He is now being held through an extraordinary power exercised by the executive. The reversal is striking, but the principle is straightforward. The test of government is not whether it can use exceptional powers against people associated with a previous establishment. It is whether it is willing to limit its own power when the same instruments are morally and legally difficult to defend.
Dissanayake cannot claim to be different merely because the person exercising the power has changed. If successive governments abused the PTA, the answer cannot be to inherit the same power and use it against a different set of targets. That is not reform. It is continuity under a different government. Sri Lanka has seen this pattern before: governments change, presidents change, political enemies change, but the argument remains remarkably constant — national security requires exceptional powers, the investigation is unfinished, and therefore detention must continue. Repetition does not make that argument stronger.
There is an especially troubling circularity in the present case. Sallay is detained because there is an investigation; the investigation continues because questions remain; and his detention is extended because the investigation continues. Such reasoning can allow detention to acquire a life of its own. The longer the investigation lasts, the easier it becomes to justify another period of detention. Meanwhile, the detainee remains without the ordinary resolution that a criminal trial is meant to provide. Sallay’s wife has appealed to Dissanayake not to extend his detention, citing his serious heart condition and asking that he instead be placed under judicial remand while receiving specialised medical treatment.
That is not an argument for Sallay’s innocence. It is an argument for due process. Questioning Dissanayake’s use of the PTA does not mean defending Sallay; it means questioning the power used against him. The Easter Sunday investigation should continue, allegations should be tested and evidence should be examined. But guilt must ultimately be established through evidence and judicial process, not through the length of time a person spends in detention or through campaigns and conspiracy theories.
There is also a political question that cannot be dismissed. Claims of ulterior political motivation have emerged around Sallay’s detention. Those claims cannot be presented as proven without evidence. But neither should they be dismissed merely because the detention is legally authorised. Political power does not become neutral simply because it is exercised under a statute. When the law gives the executive extraordinary authority, the exercise of that authority itself must be subject to scrutiny.
