The Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar has acquitted the Chairman of the Avant Garde Maritime Services Company Nissanka Senadhipathi and the seven other defendants over the operating of a floating armoury case.
The case was taken up on Friday (22) before the Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar bench comprising High Court Judges Adithya Patabendi, Manjula Thilakarathne and Mahen Weeraman.
The Attorney General had filed indictments against Nissanka Senadhipathi and seven others for illegally operating merchant vessel ships carrying a stock of firearms and explosives including 813 unlicensed automatic firearms and 200,935 rounds of ammunition on the seas off Galle.
The other defendants acquitted by the court includes former Chairman of Rakna Lanka Security Company Victor Samaraweera, Vishwajith Nandana Diyabalanage, Nilupul de Costa, former Additional Secretary of the Defence Ministry Saman Dissanayake, Albert Thilakaratne and the Ukrainian Captain of the ship, Gennadiy Gavrylov.
P.B. Premachandra, who had also been named as a defendant in the case, had passed away during the trial.
