Jayawardena handed over devices after deleting data – Witness

Former Director of the State Intelligence Service, Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police Nilantha Jayawardena handed over his personal mobile phone and laptop to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the 21 April 2019, Easter Sunday bombings for investigations, after deleting all data, which cannot be regenerated.

This was revealed when the Officer in Charge of the Forensic Digital Laboratory of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Chief Inspector of Police (CI) Sampath Kumara Senaratne testified before the Commission on 16 December.

Jayawardena was ordered to hand over his personal mobile phone and laptop to the Commission’s Police Investigation Unit on 14 September.

When he testified before the Commission on that day, he had presented to the Commission an audio recording of a telephone conversation between former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and him after the Easter Sunday bombings.

The relevant equipment handed over to the Police Investigation Unit of the Commission had been referred to the Forensic Digital Laboratory of the CID for a special investigation.

Senaratne said when Jayawardena’s mobile phone was inspected, all the data had been deleted in such a way that it would have been the same as when it was first used. The witness pointed out that no such deleted data could be regenerated.

Commissioner: “Did you ask Jayawardena about the deletion of data?”

Senaratne: “I was told that he had given the mobile phone to his wife and therefore everything related to national security had been deleted.”

Senaratne also said some data had been deleted from the laptop which was handed over to the Commission. However, about 2.6 million deleted files were regenerated and about 210 of them were handed over to the Commission, Senaratne said.

(Source: Ceylon Today – By Buddhika Samaraweera)