Sri Lankan police exhume body of murdered journalist to probe allegations against former president

Lasantha Wickermatunga had predicted his own death just three days before he was murdered in 2009. Now after all these years, his body is being exhumed again for proper investigations and to decipher whether the former President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa was behind this murder.

The Sri Lankan police exhumed the body of the senior journalist and sent it for an autopsy so that discoveries can be made about his death and the circumstances surrounding it. Wickermatunga was an outspoken editor of a local newspaper by the name of The Sunday Leader, and he had often clashed with politicians over his views.

Just three days before his death, Wickermatunga had written in his editorial that he had reason to believe that attacks against the media at the time were inspired by the government.

“When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me,” he wrote before in the piece.

The journalist was killed while he was sitting in his car that was stuck in rush hour traffic in a high security zone near Colombo. At that time proper investigations into the case were not conducted, leaving a lot of questions unanswered.

Wickermatunga’s death was one of several high-profile murders which were blamed on the Rajapaksa government and the former president and his family is now facing trial. Those cases have been reopened by the current President Maithripala Sirisena.

The former president and his family also face charges of misappropriation of state resources, something which is not taken lightly in Sri Lanka.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=53959

Posted by fatimaarshad on Sep 28 2016. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.