(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 25 March 2004 RSF statement: Investigative Report SRI LANKA Unpunished Crimes of the Presidential Security Division (PSD) On the evening of 7 September 1999, Rohana Kumara, editor of Satana (“Battle”), a Sinhalese-language weekly newspaper, was murdered while travelling in a rickshaw (three-wheeled taxi), within 50 metres of his home […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 25 March 2004 RSF statement:
Investigative Report
SRI LANKA
Unpunished Crimes of the Presidential Security Division (PSD)
On the evening of 7 September 1999, Rohana Kumara, editor of Satana (“Battle”), a Sinhalese-language weekly newspaper, was murdered while travelling in a rickshaw (three-wheeled taxi), within 50 metres of his home in a suburb of Colombo. The murderer shot him at point-blank range with a 9mm handgun. To date, this crime remains unpunished. The state has committed large sums of money to protect the high-ranking officials who ordered the murder and prevent them from being identified. Certain witnesses and suspects have also been eliminated.
Reporters Without Borders initiated an inquiry in an attempt to shed light on the motives behind this murder and several other serious attacks against Sri Lankan journalists. The organisation is now in a position to assert that members of, or individuals with close ties to, the Presidential Security Division are implicated in these crimes.
The organisation is asking the members of Parliament chosen in the upcoming elections of 2 April to form an investigative committee to examine the murder of Rohana Kumara and the other attacks mentioned in this report. Should a parliamentary commission of inquiry prove that PSD officers are implicated in these crimes, the perpetrators – whomever they may be – must be tried and punished.
Satana’s editor had already received several death threats before being murdered on 7 September 1999. He had been regularly publishing what some deemed to be harsh, and often sensationalistic, criticisms of the government and President Chandrika Kumaratunga. But his widow, Gayani Pavithra, contends that “he had reliable sources to back up what he wrote.” She told Reporters Without Borders that the opposition leader at the time, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as well as another statesman, Rajitha Senaratne, had sent certain documents to her husband. “Because of the high-ranking status of those individuals, my husband had never hesitated to publish them in Satana,” she added.
Full report : http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9646
