Kuala Lampur, June 14 -- There is a particular smell to Colombo politics after rain: diesel, wet dust, sea salt, old files, new lies, and that faint colonial rot of a state that has never really confessed to itself.

The ministries dry out. The uniforms return to their posts. The priests keep waiting. The widows keep waiting. The politicians, of course, discover justice exactly when it becomes useful.

Into this humidity walks the case of Suresh Sallay - soldier, intelligence man, Rajapaksa insider, spymaster, villain to some, patriot to others. Depending on whom you believe, he is either one of the darkest conspirators in modern Sri Lankan history or the most useful prisoner of a government desperate to prove the old regime was not merel...