Former Sri Lankan Deputy Minister Sarana Gunawardena was sentenced to three years in jail today for "misusing public funds”, during his term under the previous Rajapaksa government from 2005 to 2007.

Colombo Chief Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne sentenced Gunawardena to three years in jail and fined him Rs.300,000 for the misappropriation of state funds, related to his time as chairman of the Development Lotteries Board (DLB)

<p>Sri Lanka’s international tourist arrivals declined by 18% in 2019 compared to 2018.</p> <p>Although numbers picked up slowly following the initial plunge after the Easter Sunday bombings in April, monthly numbers still remained significantly lower than the same month the previous year.</p> <p>India, among the countries where visa-less travel was offered by Sri Lanka, was the largest source of tourist traffic to the island, accounting for 19% of total foreign arrivals in December.</p>

<p>The former director of Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has been suspended from duty.</p> <p>Shani Abeysekara who was demoted after the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has now been interdicted on charges of discrediting the police force, in relation to telephone calls made with a former minister Ranjan Ramanayake and former top CID investigator Nishantha Silva who recently fled to Switzerland.</p>

Sajith Premadasa, leader of opposition United National Party (UNP), has stated his party will now have a new “vision and outlook” as he pledged to “give the top most priority to the security of the Sinhala Buddhist motherland”.

Colombo Page reports Premadasa as telling an audience in Galle that for his party “clearly the number one priority of the Opposition is to ensure the security of the nation”, as it prepares for parliamentary elections later this year.

A 73-year-old Tamil man who had spent over a decade searching for his forcibly disappeared son, has passed away in Mannar last week.

Soosaipillai Rajenthiram, from the Olaithoduvai region, had been struggling with his health for several years, but nevertheless persisted in demanding the Sri Lankan government release more information on the whereabouts of his son Antony Ranjan.

Locals in Mannar commemorated the 35th anniversary of the Vankalai church massacre this week, where Sri Lankan soldiers shot dead a Christian father and other Tamils.

The Sri Lankan government has announced it will “review” the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) Act, which was brought in by the previous regime as part of its commitments to a UN Human Rights Council resolution on accountability.

An official attached to Sri Lanka’s Justice Ministry told the Daily Mirror that the government had held a preliminary discussion on the act, though added: “it is too early to say whether it would be repealed or not”. 

“We have to review it properly and then decide,” he said.

United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian Ranjan Ramanayake has been released on bail after having been arrested by Sri Lankan police, for allegedly not having renewed the license of a weapon that had been provided by the government. 

Ramanayake’s arrest makes him the third opposition leader to have been detained since Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency began in November last year. 

The opposition parliamentarian said that the police had raided his house searching for drugs and instead left with files related to the murder of Wasim Thajudeen. 

S. Mahendran

Prison Number Y-13139 “G” Ward,

New Magazine Prison,

Borella Colombo-09.

September 16, 2007

 

Brother, even when I was 17, when I used to eat breakfast, I made rice balls out of the old rice, curd, sugar, salt and banana.

Brother, when the army caught me, I was only 17 years old. I’ve been in prison for 14 years now.

How many people have come here and gone? Nothing at all has changed.

EU Ambassadors met with Sri Lanka’s President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to discuss economic and political development in Sri Lanka; where, Gotabaya rejected the possibility of devolving police control to the provincial councils.

The meeting was headed by Denis Chaibi, the Ambassador of the EU for Sri Lanka, and included the Ambassador for Netherlands, Tanja Gonggrijp, Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of Italy Allegra Baistrochchi, Ambassador of Romania Dr. Victor Chiujdea, Ambassador of France Eric Lavertu and Ambassador of Germany Jörn Rohde.