M A Sumanthiran

Early life

Sumanthiran was born on 9 February 1964 at the Church of South India's McLeod Hospital in Inuvil in northern Ceylon. His family are from the Vadamarachchi region of the Jaffna peninsula - his father is from Karaveddy and his mother is from Kudathanai. Both of his grandfathers were teachers in Vadamarachchi. Sumanthiran grew up in Colombo and was educated at Royal College, Colombo. After school he joined the University of Madras, graduating with a B.Sc. degree in physics. He then proceeded to Sri Lanka Law College, qualifying as an advocate.

Sumanthiran is a Methodist Christian. He is vice-president of the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka.

Law

Sumanthiran was called to the bar in 1991. He then started practising law in Colombo, appearing in civil litigation cases in the supreme court, court of appeal, commercial high court and district courts. His successful cases include the privatisation of Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, privatisation of Lanka Marine Services and the closure of Pramuka Bank. He has appeared in a number of fundamental rights cases and judicial reviews of parliamentary legislation and executive action including the charging of levy for water and establishing a revenue authority. He prevented the forced expulsion of Tamils from Colombo and successfully challenged an anti-conversion bill which the courts struck down as being unconstitutional. He has also appeared for petitioners against the proposed 18th and 19th amendments to the constitution which were found to be unconstitutional and required two-thirds majority in Parliament and a referendum. He has worked on a number of public interest cases including the ongoing attempt by residents of the Valikamam North High Security Zone to get their land back from the Sri Lankan military. His human rights work has led to him being threatened, harassed and branded "traitors in black coats" by the Sri Lankan military under the then President's brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Sumanthiran has become one of Sri Lanka's top human rights and constitutional lawyers. He received an LLM degree in internet and electronic law from Monash University in 2001. He was made a President's Counsel in 2017.

Politics

Sumanthiran was appointed as the Tamil National Alliance's (TNA) National List MP in the Sri Lankan Parliament following the 2010 parliamentary election. In May 2012 he was elected Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi's (ITAK) Secretary for Foreign and Legal Affairs. He became one of ITAK's two Assistant Secretaries in September 2014. Sumanthiran was one of the TNA's candidates in Jaffna District at the 2015 parliamentary election. He was elected and re-entered Parliament.

Sumanthiran is one of a trio of MPs (the other two being R. Sampanthan and Mavai Senathirajah) who lead the TNA.

Sumanthiran plays a major role in bridging gulf between the ethnicities and the restoration of Tamil rights through democratic means. He contributes to the Constitution-making process as TNA member of the Constitutional Assembly steering committee and also as co-chair along with Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne of the Management Committee of the secretariat for the Constitutional Assembly. A new progressive constitution can improve justice, equality and ethnic reconciliation and as a result has gained extreme opposition of ethnic nationalists of both sides.

Assassination plot

Four Ex-LTTE members were arrested in 2017 for allegedly plotting to assassinate Sumanthiran. They were accused of planning to use claymore mines on the Soranpatru-Thaalayady road on two occasions - December 12, 2016 and January 13, 2017. It is believed overseas LTTE faction headed by the Norway-based Perinbanayagam Sivaparan alias Nediyavan. As a result the National Security Council led by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe expressed concern and increased security to Sumanthiran.

Before the assassination plot Sumanthiran was attacked and called a traitor both locally and internationally a practice termed "traitorisation" carried out by the LTTE in assassinations of Tamil politicians such as Neelan Tiruchelvam. However the attempt failed after an Ex-LTTE member that believed in Sumanthiran's idea of Tamils living equally in Sri Lanka as well as his service to Ex-LTTE members and fearing upsetting the fragile peace refused an offer of money and safe passage to Europe by a group of Ex-LTTE members and notified the Terrorism Investigation Department(TID) of the Police. The TID despite initial doubts became convinced and notified Sumanthiran who was going for a cultural festival but he was too late to turn back and continued. Security for Sumanthiran was increased and Bomb squads were deployed to the cultural festival. Both the police and the army using their intelligence networks began tracking the Ex-LTTE members. Murugiah Thavavaenthan was arrested and interrogated leading to the arrest of Karalasingham Kulendran alias "Master". After interrogation the police raided houses of Kulendran's relatives which led to Calymore mines being found. After arrests of two more Ex-LTTE members Chandrasekaralingam Vasudevan alias Mathan an Ex-Tiger was arrested with a couple with Kerala ganja. Mariyanayagam Lewis Ajanthan was known by the nom de plume "Jana" was arrested and six exploders alongside several Kilos of Kerala Ganja was found. After being inquired about the incident Sumanthiran said, “I will continue to go to the North as before and continue to directly engage with the people as I have been doing in the past”. He also expressed concern about Former LTTE members being manipulated by cash incentives

Northern Province Chief Minister C. V. Vigneswaran expressed doubts over the doubts over the alleged plot and called it a "a ploy by the government to not reduce the presence of military in the north." He also noted that those arrested "They have not been charged with attempting to murder a parliamentarian, but only charged for possessing narcotics." Sumanthiran in response said " he could not verify the truthfulness of the assassination plot."

The Global Tamil Forum expressed shock at the assassination attempt and praised Sumanthiran's "courage, passion and commitment to peacefully resolve the grievances of the Tamil people by adopting consensual approach, particularly through the constitutional process"