The head of the International Press Institute (IPI) has slammed the Sri Lankan government for failing to investigate the murder of Sinhala journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge and called for his killers to be brought to justice on the 11^th anniversary of his death.

"It has been 11 years since Lasantha Wickrematunge was assassinated, yet virtually no progress has been made in securing justice", IPI Director of Advocacy Ravi R. Prasad said.

Tamil Guardian's Batticaloa-based correspondent Selvakumar Nilanthan, who appeared in court on Wednesday after reporting on alleged corruption against a local government official, was released on bail.

S Nilanthan appeared at Eravur Circuit Magistrates Court on Tuesday, where he was summoned to answer charges of reporting about protests and disclosing the opinions of local residents on Tamil-language news platforms against the divisional secretary (DS), N Vilvarathnam.

India’s central government has consistently rejected the Tamil Nadu government’s proposition to release seven people who have been convicted over the killing of Rajiv Gandhi to avoid “international ramifications”, it was revealed this week.

Sri Lankan government minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage told parliament he had obtained evidence that former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had conspired to assassinate him.

Aluthgamage, Sri Lanka's State Minister of Power, said that following the arrest of UNP parliamentarian Ranjan Ramanayake, evidence had been retrieved that contained telephone conversations between Ramanayaka and Wickremesinghe with details of an assassination plan.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.