1962 Ceylonese Coup D'état Attempt - The Aftermath

The Aftermath

Since no shots were fired and no troops deployed, the conspirators couldn't be charged. So they were remanded, pending trial, in a special section of the Welikada Prison called the Magazine Section. A special security detachment was selected called the composite guard to guard these officers from the Ceylon Light Infantry with Major A Hulangamuwa in Charge. They were held in solitary confinement in hope of getting a confession.

All the 26 charged with conspiring to overthrow the an elected government were Christians, in terms of ethnicity, there were 12 Sinhalese, six Tamils and six Burghers among them. The remaining five were not prosecuted due to lack of evidence.

The accused were defended by some of the best lawyers led by G.G. Ponnambalam, H.W. Jayewardene and S.J. Kadirgamar to counter the "inquisitor" Felix Dias Bandaranaike. However Colonel F.C. de Saram had made a confession assuming full responsibility was used by the prosecution. The government put in place a new law called "Criminal Law Special Provision Act of 1962" under which hearsay could be admitted as evidence. And to bring the coup case under the draconian law, it was given retrospective effect from January 1, 1962.

But the first Trial at Bar held in 1962, under the new law, however the judges dissolved the court saying that they were appointed by the Executive, when the latter had no constitutional right to do so. the Act was then amended to get the Supreme Court to appoint the judges. The second court also dissolved itself because of one of the judges, Hon. Justice A.W.H. Abeyesundere, QC, in his earlier post as Attorney General, had assisted the investigation of the case.

A Third Court sat for 324 days from June 3, 1963, and convicted 11 of the 24 accused including Col F.C. de Saram, Col. Maurice de Mel, Rear Admiral Royce de Mel, Douglas Liyanage, Sidney de Zoysa, Wilmot Abraham (later died in prison in 1964), B. I. Loyola, Wilton White, Nimal Jayakody, Noel Matthysz, Victor Joseph, Basil Jesudason, John Felix, David Tambyah, Samuel Jackson and Rodney de Mel. The sentence was ten years in jail and confiscation of property. However the condemned took their case to the Privy Council, In its ruling given in December 1965, it held the Special Act of 1962 ultra vires of the Ceylon constitution and said that the Act had denied fair trial. According to the Privy Council the law had been specially enacted to convict the men, under trial they did not have the protections that they would have had under general criminal law. It acquitted all the eleven.

Of the accused Col. De Saram returned to his family law firm, Douglas Liyanage was appointed Secretary to the Ministry of State in the early 1980s, Capt. John A.R. Felix went on to become the Commissioner-General of Inland Revenue and Lt. Col. Basil Jesudasan became the Chairman of Carsons Cumberbatch PLC.

It was claimed that they had hoped to replace the government with a junta of ex-Prime Ministers. Therefor some of the Crown witnesses tried to link the then Governor-General, Sir Oliver Goonetilleke, and former Prime Ministers, Dudley Senanayake and Colonel Sir John Kotelawala, with the conspiracy. Although this was never proven Sir Oliver Goonetilleke resigned as Governor-General and went into self-imposed exile in Britain, he was replaced by Sirimavo Bandaranaike's uncle William Gopallawa who was at the time serving as Ceylon's Ambassador to the US.