Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian M A Sumanthiran defended his party’s decision to back Sri Lankan presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa in next week’s election, as criticism over the decision continues.

Premadasa has “built a reputation for working hard and delivering results, claimed Sumanthiran, adding that, “Our people look to him to live up to his promises to continue the constitutional reform process and deliver on a political solution that will meet the aspirations of Sri Lankans across the country”.

At least three Sri Lankan police officers have interdicted after it was revealed they failed to take a statement from a disabled woman who was raped, reportedly by a Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) supporter following a rally.

The woman, who has Down’s Syndrome, had reportedly attended an SLPP rally with her mother, before she was assaulted on her way home.

At least 850 members of the Sinhalese diaspora have flown to Sri Lanka in order to vote for Gotabaya Rajapaksa in next week’s presidential election, reports the Sunday Times.

With the election less than a week away, leading candidates are busy campaigning for votes with the election set to be a close run between Rajapaksa and Sajith Premadasa.

Rajapaksa, who moved to the United States in 1998, reportedly has a large group of supporters amongst the diaspora in Los Angeles. His Sri Lankan rivals have accused Rajapaksa of still holding US citizenship.

Sri Lanka’s current president Maithripala Sirisena pardoned the killer of a Swedish teenager this weekend, in a move that has symbolised the climate of impunity on the island.

Jude Jayamaha was sentenced to death over the 2005 murder of Yvonne Jonsson, who was reportedly on holiday in Sri Lanka when she was beaten to death at a high-rise apartment in Colombo.

Sirisena had announced last month he was considering pardoning Jayamaha, saying he had behaved well in prison and called the murder an "incident of impatience".

The Tamil political leadership should join the “extra-parliamentary” agitations across the North-East in order to achieve the political goals of  power-sharing, accountability and demilitarisation, argued journalist J S Tissainayagam in an article for the Asian Correspondent last month.

<p>A fresh contempt of court hearing against Gnanasara, a leader of the extremist Sinhala-nationalist BBS organisation, has been set for February 17, 2020 by the Sri Lankan court of appeal.</p> <p>The action was filed by TNA MP Shanthi Sriskandarajah after Gnanasara had led the cremation of a Buddhist monk on Tamil temple premises, directly contravening a court order prohibiting the action.</p> <p>The senior superintendent (SSP) and chief inspector of the Mullaitivu police department will also appear as defendants in the case, for failing to prevent the court order from being disobeyed.</p>

Pressure from the Sri Lankan military has led to the University of Jaffna barring the head of its law department from engaging in private practice, after he took up a public interest habeas corpus case into the 1996 disappearance of more than two dozen Tamil youth.

Tamils clearing the Kanchikudiyaru thuyilum illam (LTTE cemetery) were threatened by the Sri Lankan army on Friday morning.

On Friday, families of fallen LTTE cadres and members of the public gathered to clear up the cemetery in Amparai district, in preparation for Maaveerar Naal on November 27.

Sri Lankan soldiers went to the site and threatened those who had gathered to stop the clearing activities or face arrest.

The Sri Lankan navy continued with its militarisation of the Tamil North-East, announcing that it had constructed two pre-schools for Tamil infants in Pungudutivu and Mandaitivu last month.

Sri Lanka’s leading presidential election candidates have spent over Rs. 1 billion so far on their campaigns in just two weeks, according to figures released by the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV).

Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Party (SLPP) reportedly spent Rs. 574 million expenditure, whilst Sajith Premadasa’s New Democratic Front (NDF) spent Rs. 372 million.

All other political parties account for less than 1% of the expenditure, the CMEV added.