Zaharan Group Spiritual Leader Naufer Maulavi’s Confession Deemed Voluntary

COLOMBO (News 1st); The Colombo Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar has ruled that a confession made to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) by Naufer Maulavi, identified as the spiritual leader of the group linked to first accused Zaharan, was given voluntarily in the ongoing case against 24 defendants over the Easter Sunday terror attacks.

The ruling was delivered yesterday by Trial-at-Bar Chair Judge Navaratne Marasinghe, with the concurrence of High Court Judges Ramanathan Kannan and Sujeewa Nissanka.

The court noted that Naufer Maulavi had made the relevant statement on November 11, 2019, at the CID Headquarters before Assistant Superintendent of Police Wijitha Perera.

In order to determine whether the statement had been made voluntarily, the Trial-at-Bar conducted a ‘voir dire’ inquiry.

After reviewing the evidence and submissions presented during the inquiry, the three-judge bench concluded that the confession had been made of the suspect’s own free will.

With this ruling, it has now been confirmed that confessions made by four of the accused in the case were given voluntarily.

These include the first accused, Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed Naufer, also known by aliases Abu Saeed, Abu Sareem, and Naufer Maulavi, along with the 11th accused Kalib Sameer, the 4th accused Mohamed Ibrahim Sadik Abdullah, and the 9th accused Mohamed Rameesh Mohamed Sajith.

Meanwhile, the court is scheduled to deliver its ruling on June 30 regarding whether the confession of the 18th accused, Razik Raza Hussein, was also made voluntarily.

The case is being heard against 24 accused individuals.