“I will sacrifice my life for you who stood by me and supported at all times. I will always be there for you,” a smiling Fonseka told hundreds of supporters when he walked out.
Ahead of his release, the retired four-star general was discharged from a private hospital in Colombo where he was seeking treatment for a respiratory illness caused by injuries he suffered in a suicide bomb attack in April 2006.
Prison officials took him to the Supreme Court, where his lawyers got court approval to withdraw two appeal cases. He was later driven back to prison and formally discharged.
Fonseka unsuccessfully tried to unseat Rajapakse in the January 2010 presidential election. The two fell-out as to who should take credit to crush the Tigers in May 2009, that ended nearly four-decades of bloodshed.The government detained Fonseka two weeks after his election defeat in February 2010, on charges of corruption relating to military purchases. He was convicted given a 30-month jail sentence in September 2010.
Last November, Fonseka was also convicted and sentenced to three-years in jail for saying that Tiger surrenders were killed on the orders of Rajapakse’s younger brother Gotabhaya, who is defence secretary.
Fonseka has also earned the wrath of Rajapakse by expressing willingness to testify before any international tribunal that is investigating alleged war crimes charges after the United Nations said tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the final months of the war
A US green-card holder, Fonseka was named a political prisoner in the US State Department's 2010 human rights report.
The most fundamental principles of justice was violated when he was convicted. He was clearly a victim of selective implementation of law.
That is a key problem here, not only for him but for the common man. Selective implementation is not a 'rule of law' it is arbitrary rule.