A man has been shot dead by a group of unidentified gunmen in Muttur on Tuesday morning, reports NewsFirst.lk . According to the Police Media Spokesperson’s Office an unidentified group arrived at the individual’s house on Tuesday morning and shot him dead. A post-mortem is set to be carried out at Kilinochchi Hospital later today. No suspects have been identified yet. Police are reportedly beginning investigations into the killing.
Retired Sri Lankan military intelligence officers have reported been arrested over the case of diapered journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, reported Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Three retired members of the Army intelligence unit were arrested after surrendering themselves to police with their lawyers over the weekend. The latest arrests mean that 10 military personnel, including some who are currently serving, have been arrested so far.
The chairman of the Sri Lankan government's Presidential Commission into Missing Persons said the authorities had not set a deadline to complete its investigations. The commission was announced over two years ago, under the previous Sri Lankan government led by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. The commission’s Chairman Maxwell Paranagama told The Sunday Leader that the commission would not yet fix a date as to when it would conclude, stating that investigations were still ongoing. Last month, marking the “The Day of the Disappeared”, Amnesty International stated that successive Sri Lankan governments have appointed and largely ignored commissions to investigate the issue of disappearances.
Sri Lankan police today disrupted a signature campaign in Trincomalee, calling for an international accountability mechanism to deal with mass atrocities committed during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s armed ethnic conflict. The organisers of the campaign were asked by police to meet the chief inspector over a complaint that they were forcibly recruiting signatures in Trincomalee. President of the Tamil National People’s Front Gajen Ponnambalam, who went to the police station, tweeted that the campaign was filmed by the police media unit, pointing out that the police could confirm that the allegations were untrue by checking their footage.
Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe met with the commanders of the country’s army, navy and air force, alongside Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, to discuss an ‘acceptable format’ for the domestic inquiry the government says it will conduct. A senior official of the foreign ministry described the discussion last week as an ‘initiation’ and said the officials will reach an agreement on the best mechanism to be adopted to handle outstanding issues of accountability, which will again be scrutinised at the UN Human Rights Council later this month, The Sunday Observer reported. The official further said, the news reports that the government has shared details of the domestic mechanism with the US, had no basis.
The inquiry into the floating armoury, which was suspected to have been used by former defence chief Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has been dropped. The CID informed the court it would not proceed with the case as per the instructions of the Attorney-General. A magisterial inquiry into Avant Garde Maritime Services, a private firm, was established after police seized more than 3,000 weapons in 20 containers from containers, soon after the presidential elections in January. Galle magistrate court had imposed a travel ban on former secretary of defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa and former navy commander and...
There will be no official TNA delegation to Geneva for this month's UN Human Rights Council session, the Daily Mirror newspaper quoted the TNA spokesperson, M A Sumanthiran, as saying on Monday. Commenting on the decision by Northern Provincial Councillors, M K Shivajilingham and Ananthy Sasitharan to attend, Mr Sumanthiran reportedly further added: "I also heard about it in the media. Individual members may go. But the TNA, as a party, has not decided to go."
The Sri Lankan prime minister and UNP head, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has called for progress reports on domestic investigations into key murders which took place during the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, reports Colombo Page . According to the paper, official bodies including the attorney general and the Terrorism Investigation Division have been instructed to give details "at the earliest".
The Sri Lankan president, Maithripala Sirisena warned those gathered at the United National Party's (UNP) 64th anniversary celebratory event to be beware of 'Eelamists' living abroad who are trying to separate the country. "We should not think the enemy is weak and the powers of the enemy should never be underestimated," President Sirisena warned . "All attempts by those enemies to reverse the gains of the country must be roundly defeated," he said, adding, "It is an essential political theory which we should clearly understand”. "We should be aware about the futile attempts by those who are...
The constituents of the new national government says it will extend the parameters of its Memorandum of Uderstanding to include a common, formal response to the report of the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL). Speaking to the Sunday Times , UNP Chairman Malik Samarawickrema said the response to the OISL will be one of the highlights of the extended MoU between the SLFP and the UNP. “The MOU will include an understanding on taking joint positions regarding important issues such as the ethnic issue and on international issues such as the call for an investigation on alleged war crimes,”...