COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- The suicide bomber who killed President Ranasinghe Premadasa infiltrated the late president's household by providing liquor and women to his personal valet, a senior police official said Thursday.
The valet, E.M.P. Mohideen, enjoyed the late president's trust so much that security staff did not check him out periodically, said Amarasena Rajapaksa, a deputy inspector general with the Criminal Investigation Department.
Police identified the assassin as Kulaweerasingham Weerakumar of Gurunagar in Jaffna, the northern territory held by Tamil rebels, Rajapakse told reporters at a briefing on the investigation into the May 1 assassination of Premadasa.
Rajapakse said investigators, however, still could not lay blame for the assassination on the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who have been fighting for the past decade to establish a separate homeland in Sri Lanka's north and east for the country's minority Tamils.
'That aspect is being probed,' Rajapakse said 'It is certainly not an inside job.'
'We should not come into any conclusions that the LTTE did it,' he said. 'We must go into all the aspects. Let it be open a while.'
Weerakumar killed Premadasa, himself and more than 20 other people by strapping some 2 pounds of plastic explosives to his body and exploding it about eight to 10 feet from the president at a May Day rally.
Rajapakse said Weerakumar used Mohideen's weakness for liquor to gain the confidence of the valet, who investigators believe helped Weerakumar pass a security check when he carried out the actual assassination.
Weerakumar often flew in helicopters with advance presidential parties, including security men, in the company of Mohideen, but the valet carefully concealed him from Premadasa in such instances, Rajapakse said.
'The assassination occurred due to the negligence of domestic staff and mid-level security personnel,' Rajapakse said.
Already 23 people, including 18 Tamils and two Sinhalese members of the president's domestic staff, are now in custody in connection with the assassination.
Security sources said those arrested include a sergeant from the police Special Task Force and a sergeant from the now disbanded Presidential Security Division, both of whom Weerakumar had entertained with liquor.
Rajapakse said he had been warned in early March of an attempt to posion Premadasa, and advised Premadasa and his domestic and security staff.
'I wanted to solicit their cooperation,' he said. 'If they knew anyone or any foreigner or anything like that to bring it to our notice.
'I asked them the places where vegetables were purchased,' he added. 'We wanted the purchases to be made at random from different places. This was because of fears of poisoning...'
'Our request for the domestic staff who are now under interrogation was if they knew anyone in particular getting close to them to let us know,' Rajapakse said. 'But the answer, particularly by late Mr. Mohideen, was that there was nothing.'
'From the information gathered from the persons in custody, we found that there was negligence on the part of the domestic staff. We are probing to a greater extent,' Rajapakse said.
'This man went out with domestic staff and advance party,' he said. 'They did not allow this gentleman to be seen by the late president. They always concealed him. If he was seen, his excellency would have asked questions who this gentleman is.'
Rajapakse said the assassin, whom he referred to as Kumar, came to Colombo in April 1992 and began operating a grocery shop. He said that by the time of this month's May Day rally, Mohideen fully trusted Weerakumar.
'Kumar came on one street pushing a bicycle,' Rajapakse said. 'When he came toward the president's parked vehicle, he was stopped by three security officers. Mohideen from a distance indicated he knew him and cleared him.
'The explosion occurred when Kumar was walking toward the president, about eight to 10 feet away from him,' he said.
Rajapakse said Weerakumar also ran a trucking service that operated between Colombo and Jaffna. 'There are instances that certain amount of influence were made by Mohideen to allow his lorries to pass without checks,' he said.
