Abdul Caffoor Mohamad Ameer

Abdul Caffoor Mohamed Ameer QC
32nd Attorney General of Ceylon
In office 1966–1970
Preceded by	Douglas St. Clive Budd Jansze
Succeeded by	Victor Tennekoon
Personal details
Born	1 November 1914 (1914-11) Veyangalla, Kalutara District, Sri Lanka
Died	May 1997 (1997-06) (aged 82)
Resting place	Colombo, Sri Lanka
Spouse	Rahila
Children	Fazl, Farook, Shireen, Yasmin, Shiraz
Residence(s)	96, 5th Lane, Colombo 3
Alma mater	Queens' College, Cambridge
Profession	Barrister at Law

Deshamanya Abdul Caffoor Mohamed Ameer, QC (1 November 1914 – May 1997) was a Sri Lankan lawyer. He was the 32nd Attorney General of Ceylon. He was appointed in 1966, succeeding Douglas St. Clive Budd Jansze, and held the office until 1970. He was succeeded by Victor Tennekoon.^[1]

Ameer attended Queens' College, Cambridge, gaining a MA and was called to the bar as a barrister from the Inner Temple. On his return to Ceylon, he was enrolled as an advocate in 1940. He joined the Attorney General's Department as a Temporary Additional Crown Counsel on 1 October 1947. On 1 March 1949 he was confirmed as a Crown Counsel.^[2]

He was involved in leading the prosecution of Talduwe Somarama Thero in the trial of the Bandaranaike assassination in 1960. He resigned in protest from the post of Deputy Solicitor General when George E. Chitty, QC of the unofficial bar was retained by the government to lead the prosecution against the appeals of the three convicts of the assassination in the Court of Criminal Appeal. After a successful stint in the unofficial bar, he was appointed by Dudley Senanayake's government to the post of Attorney General in 1966 following an alleged attempted coup d'état. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel and in December 1969 addressed the 681st Special Political Committee meeting at the 24th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York ^[3] on the Palestinian problem. He was conferred the national honour of the title of Deshamanya in 1991 the first-ever Independence Day National Honours list created in 1986.^[4] Former minister M. L. M. Aboosally was his brother-in-law.

References

1. Amerasinghe, A. Ranjit B. (1986), The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka : the first 185 years, Sarvodaya Book Pub. Services, ISBN 978-955-599-000-4
2. The Ceylon Civil List 1954. Ceylon: The Government Press.
3. "General Assembly, 24th session, official records, Special Political Committee, 681st meeting". 1969.
4. "National Awards". Presidential Secretariat - Sri Lanka. Retrieved 9 November 2013.

Legal offices
Preceded by Douglas St. Clive Budd Jansze	Attorney General of Ceylon 1966–1970	Succeeded by Victor Tennekoon