“Medals are just ‘Tin Pieces’” — Dilip Pieris
During Major General Suresh Salley’s trial, Deputy Solicitor General Dilip Pieris made a degrading remark insulting the entire Armed Forces. The historic counterattack by the defense President’s Counsel heated up the court premises.
Here’s what happened. Retired Sri Lanka Air Force officer Shantha Jayatilake appeared in court to represent himself under Section 260 of the Criminal Procedure Code. But Attorney General’s representative Dilip Pieris couldn’t tolerate it. He misinterpreted Section 260 and launched into legal semantics to strongly oppose the self-representation.
Worse still, in the middle of his submission, Dilip Pieris looked at the gallantry medals worn by the retired officer and said, _“He comes wearing those tin pieces,”_ in an extremely insulting manner.
When the officer tried to object to this insult, the Honorable Judge reprimanded him harshly. The Judge warned that if anyone interrupts and disrupts court decorum while a Counsel is speaking, he would have them remanded through police.
It was then, that seeing the Judge’s firm stance, Dilip Pieris got scared. Realizing the gravity of his statement, he immediately tried to apologize and backtrack: “I couldn’t see those medals properly, that’s why I said it,” trying to wriggle out in a cowardly manner.
Next, to cover his mistake, Dilip Pieris argued: _“How is it that an ‘aggrieved party’ suddenly appears after 7 years since the Easter attacks, just when the case against Salley is underway?”
He said the only true victims in this case are the dead and the priests.
To the trap Pieris thought he had set, Senior President’s Counsel Maithree Gunaratne gave a thunderous reply that shook the entire courtroom!
Mr. Gunaratne explained Section 260 of the Criminal Procedure Code precisely. He said that in this case, it’s not only the complainant side, but also suspects who are detained unjustly without any evidence who are victims and aggrieved parties! Therefore, justice must be served equally to both sides, he stressed.
Then came the lethal strike against Dilip’s “tin pieces” comment:
“The problem is not with your eyes, but with the red-tinted glasses you’re wearing! You wore blue-tinted glasses for a while, and now you wear red-tinted glasses, so the gallantry medals earned with blood, flesh, and tears for the country look like tin pieces to you!”
The defense counsel didn’t stop there. He requested that Pieris’s insult be specially recorded in the court records.
He also stated that just as an aggrieved party suddenly appeared after so long, everyone in the country knows how, after the 2024 political change, new stories about “masterminds” suddenly emerged, and certain Attorney General’s Department officials suddenly surfaced in this case and this complaint!
This is not an isolated incident. Throughout the past few hearings, Dilip Pieris of the Attorney General’s Department has been targeting the military structure and intelligence services — the backbone of national security. We remember the theatrical performances in earlier hearings where he threatened the Army Commander, degraded the position, and belittled the intelligence services.
Today too, the insult to military honor from the AG’s level received its due answer inside the courtroom.
The law should not be enforced to please political masters or to settle personal grudges against the military uniform.
Until the “legal log and colored glasses” of government legal officers who see the medals awarded by the President to war heroes as mere “tin pieces,” and who conveniently change their voice from time to time for their own benefit — are removed, it won’t be easy to protect military morale and national pride, no matter how many peacekeeping forces you send to Haiti or anywhere else.
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