Iqbal Athas – Journalist Who Exposed MiG Deal Turns Gota Propagandist – Colombo Telegraph
December 30, 2019
Inexplicably the journalist that first exposed the 2006 MiG-27 deal, Iqbal Athas has turned propagandist for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa even after he recalled the horrific threats to his life and being forced to flee Sri Lanka as a result of exposing the shady aircraft purchase as recently as January this year.
In 2006 Iqbal Athas exposed the irregular procurement in the Sunday Times causing ripples in the defence establishment then headed by Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. By his own admission in a speech made at a public forum in January 2019 the senior Sunday Times Journalist said that the FCID had commenced its investigation into the 2006 MiG 27 procurement by the Sri Lankan Government, based on his own initial statement to the newly established police division with a mandate to investigate financial crimes and corruption. In his speech in January the former defence reporter spoke at length about how the defence ministry then led by Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the state media called him a traitor and explained how he had to flee the country overnight on a tip of shortly before Lasantha Wickrematunge the editor of the Sunday Leader who followed up the MiG deal story was murdered.