A Tamil asylum seeker, whose father was shot dead and his mother and sister were disappeared this year has been deported to Sri Lanka from Australia, The Guardian reports. 

The man, known only as 'Kavi', had been detained in an immigration camp for the past four months after his bridging visa expired. 

He fled to Australia 6 years ago after the end of the armed conflict in 2009.

In a statement to Australia's home affairs minister, Kavi wrote:  

“On 5 January 2018 I received a very distressing call from my mother.

A Hindu priest who has been in custody for nearly 13 years under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) has finally been released, after a Colombo court accepted he was forced into signing a confession over an assassination attempt on Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary.

The priest. identified as Sriskandarajah Sharma, had been arrested in 2006 under the much criticised PTA, after an assassination attempt on Sri Lanka’s then defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

There was no evidence against the priest apart from a confession, that Colombo High Court Judge Sampath Abeykoon accepted he had been forced into signing.

Despite ongoing reports in Sri Lankan papers that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) was planning to purchase a stake in the loss-making Mattala airport, India has denied that such a proposal was on the cards. 

Asked in the Lok Sabha whether AAI was planning to buy a significant stake in the airport, the Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha was quoted by the Economic Times as replying, "No such proposal is under consideration at present."

Mr Sinha also denied there were plans to build a flying school and complete maintenance work at the airport. 

A panel discussion was held at the British parliament this week, to mark the 35^th anniversary of the Black July pogrom, when thousands of Tamils were killed.

Sri Lankan soldiers again involved themselves in the annual chariot festival of a Hindu temple in Achuveli.

Soldiers and army officers were present in uniform at the festival and engaged in activities such as pulling the chariot, usually an important ritual expected of devotees.

The highly criticised Civil Security Department of Sri Lanka has made 100 temporary Tamil workers in Kilinochchi into permanent employees, despite repeated calls for the department to dismantle its businesses and hand over ventures such as farms and preschools to cooperatives or the provincial council. 

The appointments were made as part of a plan to gradually make permanent 1507 temporary employees that have worked for the department for 5 years and over.

The victims of Black July, the anti-Tamil pogroms of 1983, were remembered in Batticaloa.

The commemoration was held by the Tamil National People’s Front at the party’s Batticaloa office on Monday night.

Two Sri Lankan navy officers who have been accused of the enforced disappearance and murder of 11 Tamil youths in 2008 today had their remand extended until July 31. 

The two men were form navy intelligence members, who along with other suspects are accused of removing the 11 bodies from a navy camp in Trincomalee. 

The former navy media spokesperson, Commodore DKP Dassanayake is also one of the accused. 

Moody's Investors Service affirmed the B1 rating of three Sri Lankan banks, the Bank of Ceylon (BOC), Hatton National Bank Ltd. (HNB) and Sampath Bank PLC, whilst maintaining the negative outlook, citing continued external vulnerability risk. 

A Sri Lankan cricket player has been questioned by police over the rape of a Norwegian tourist in a Colombo hotel room this weekend.

Danushka Gunathilaka, Sri Lanka’s 27-year-old opening batsman, has been questioned over the incident after his friend was arrested for sexual assault. It is alleged that the woman was raped by his friend at the Movenpick hotel on Saturday night, whilst Mr Gunathilaka was in the room.