President never said that: Rajitha

President Maithripala Sirisena never attempted to defend former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in his speech at the SLFI on the 12th but only expressed his displeasure over the treatment on former Navy Commanders, when they were summoned to the courts on the Avant- garde floating armoury case, Cabinet Spokesman Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne said. Responding to a barrage of questions from the media at the weekly Cabinet news briefing over the controversial remarks made by President Sirisena today that led to a major debate in the media, among the political parties in the Government and the Opposition and among the public, Minister Senaratne said the speech had been wrongly interpreted by the media, including the State media and added that President Sirisena had been misquoted and the media had removed certain parts of the speech and the end result was a totally distorted speech.