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Parliamentarian Mahinda Rajapaksa will resign from the post of premiership after an address to the nation, son of former strongman president Namal Rajapaksa MP tweeted a short while ago.

Namal also said that they will look to form a broader alliance with the SLFP and president Maithripala Sirisena.

The Supreme Court has rejected an attempt by the president to dismiss parliament and hold snap elections, extending a political crisis that has paralysed the island nation for more than six weeks.

The court in Colombo ruled that Maithripala Sirisena’s order to dismiss parliament, issued on 9 November, was unconstitutional.

The unanimous decision by the country’s top judges leaves Sri Lanka without a prime minister or cabinet, nor a 2019 budget in place. Lawmakers have warned that public sector employees could cease being paid from the beginning of next month.

The ruling extends an impasse that started on 26 October, when Sirisena suddenly announced he had dismissed the country’s prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Wickremesinghe declared the dismissal was an “undemocratic coup” and refused to vacate the prime ministerial residence for the man Sirisena appointed to replace him, the country’s former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa has been unable to rally enough MPs in the country’s parliament to confirm his premiership, and Sirisena has refused to reappoint Wickremesinghe, who he claims was stubborn, arrogant and allowed corruption to flourish.

Sirisena had tried calling an election to break the deadlock but after Thursday’s decision must continue negotiating with Wickremesinghe and other parliamentary leaders.

Fireworks could be heard in Colombo shortly after 5.15pm local time when the decision was announced.

Wickremesinghe said that they expect the President to respect the unanimous verdict."We trust that the President will promptly respect the judgment of the courts. The legislature, judiciary, and the executive are equally important pillars of a democracy and the checks and balances that they provide are crucial to ensuring the sovereignty of its citizens," he said.

The Supreme Court granted leave to proceed in the case involving former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s appeal against the interim order issued by the Court of Appeal which barred Rajapaksa from functioning as Prime Minister. 

On December 3, the Court of Appeal issued an interim order restraining Rajapaksa and his purported Cabinet from functioning until the hearing of the Writ of Quo Warranto filed against them is concluded. 

Rajapaksa and his Cabinet will continue to be restrained from acting in their respective offices until the case is full heard.

The case was heard before a three-judge Supreme Court bench comprising justices Eva Wanasundera, Buwaneka Aluvihare and Vijith Malalgoda today.

Veteran actor W. Jayasiri has denied accepting the once in a lifetime Kalabushana National Award from President Maithripala Sirisena. Posting on his social media page the actor announced his decision while going on to say “With great disgust, I refuse to attend or accept an award from a President who is gambling with the future of the country”.

The actor also said he is unconditionally partisan to any fight to protect democracy despite the political party.

Excavators in Sri Lanka have found the skeletal remains of 21 children as well as signs of possible torture of the dead in the biggest mass grave in  the country’s former civil war zone, Mannar, putting a spotlight on the island’s recent record of human rights violations.

So far 276 skeletons have been exhumed, with forensic archaeologist Professor Raj Somadeva saying the number already makes it the “largest mass grave ever explored on the island”.

“We have excavated only 70 per cent of the gravesite, so the body count is bound to be much higher,” Professor Somadeva told The Independent.

Metal objects that appear to bind together the legs of the dead have raised new questions about what happened to the victims in the mass grave.

Who they were – and who killed them – remains uncertain. However experts agree the presence of children shows this was “certainly a [whole] community of people”. 


The excavation, which started in May when a construction worker stumbled upon a human bone, is still in its early stages according to the chief investigation officer of the Mannar mass grave, Dr Saminda Rajapakse.“We still don’t know the exact period of these deaths,” he said.

“We have no idea who the victims are, their names or whether they were Tamil civilians, rebels or Sinhalese soldiers. Nothing.”

Although pottery, porcelain, metal objects and some jewellery worn by the victims have been found at the gravesite, there are no signs of clothes.

While it is too early to hold responsible either the Sri Lankan military or the Tamil Tiger rebels, who fought a bloody civil war from 1983 to 2009, human rights activists and the families of missing people are already demanding justice.

P Nagamma, a 67-year-old Tamil woman, said she believed her 18-year-old son lies buried in the Mannar mass grave. She told The Independent he was arrested by the Sri Lankan military on suspicion of being a terrorist in the early Nineties.

He had just gone out to meet a friend and eyewitnesses told me that some unknown men took him away near the site where they found the grave,” Ms Nagamma said tearfully. “I have been waiting for him for 27 years, somehow hoping he’ll be alive somewhere. But now I think he’s lying in that grave.”

Nagamma was not alone in that belief. Sandrapradasham Niranchan, a lawyer fighting for the families of the disappeared, has filed affidavits on behalf of nine families stating their husbands or sons were taken into custody by the army, navy or unknown groups in Mannar and were among the victims in the mass grave.

“Torturing and killing civilians is a blatant human rights crime. There are children in that mass grave. And we are certain there are more of these gravesites around the country where the disappeared Tamils have been buried,” he said.   

The mass grave in Mannar, a Tamil-majority area, was the scene of a number of battles during the war, in which more than 100,000 people died and at least 20,000 – mostly Tamils – remain missing. 

Rights groups allege both the military and the Tamil Tigers are to blame for civilian deaths and disappearances. However, former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who faces international war crimes charges and was instrumental in ending the long drawn-out conflict, has maintained the Sri Lankan military caused not a single civilian casualty.

A spokesperson for the Sri Lankan military claimed it was not responsible for the grave. “The army is not involved in that gravesite. We had nothing to do with it,” brigadier Sumith Atapattu said.

The Tamil Tigers themselves committed many atrocities, ruthlessly executing soldiers, Tamil civilians who did not support them and sometimes their own guerrilla members. The terrorist group, which had sophisticated air, sea and land units is also accused of using civilians as human shields throughout the conflict.

“It is extremely possible that the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) could be responsible for the people in that grave,” Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, an ethnic Tamil human rights activist, told The Independent.

“But whosoever committed these atrocities has to be held responsible, because this is not just a war crime, but a crime against humanity,” he said. (The Independent)

Sri Lanka Parliament passed a Vote of Confidence today stating that UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe commands the confidence of Parliament to function as Prime Minister. 117 MPs supported the motion.

The motion of confidence was submitted by UNP Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa. UNP MP Mangala Samaraweera seconded the motion. 

UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe thanked everyone who supported the confidence motion and added that it was the duty of all political parties to respect the Constitutional provisions.

Meanwhile, members of the UPFA boycotted today’s Parliamentary session.

The United National Party (UNP) has filed a police complaint over a forged document that claimed to include the contents of a deal between the UNP and Tamil National Alliance (TNA).

The said document is being circulated widely on social media with the forged signatures of UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and TNA leader R. Sampanthan.

UNP MP S.M. Marikkar has lodged the complaint at the police headquarters today.

The Court of Appeal on Wednesday postponed until next month the hearing of a petition restraining Mahinda Rajapaksa and his purported government from functioning amidst a political crisis that erupted after the sacking of premier Ranil Wickremesinghe. 

122 MPs from the United National Party (UNP), Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) filed a Writ of Quo Warranto questioning the legitimacy of former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his 'purported' Cabinet.

The Appeal Court ordered to hear the petition on January 16, 17 and 18.

MP Udaya Gammanpila says that the UPFA is ready to leave the role of government. Speaking to media after the Supreme Court’s verdict was delivered, he made this statement. 

“We are ready to leave. Ranil Wickremesinghe has had the opportunity to work as the Prime Minister for the fifth time,” he added.

He further said that the UPFA MP group will meet at 7 pm today (13) to discuss further actions.

A babysitter who sexually abused two seven-year-old boys in Perth has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison and is likely to be deported to Sri Lanka after serving his term.

Dayanthan Stanley Mohanraj, 19, was convicted after a trial of four counts of sexually penetrating a child in 2016, when he was babysitting on a casual basis.

Stanley Mohanraj showed one boy pornography and later sexually abused the child in a public toilet, then threatened to kill him if he told his parents what happened.

He separately abused the same boy in a playroom and on another day attacked both children while they were playing, telling them to keep it a secret, the West Australian District Court heard on Tuesday.

Judge Vicki Stewart said Stanley Mohanraj lacked remorse and was unwilling to accept responsibility for his offending against two vulnerable children (file photo) 

Judge Vicki Stewart said Stanley Mohanraj lacked remorse and was unwilling to accept responsibility for his offending against two vulnerable children, which involved a serious breach of trust.

'You took advantage of these two young boys. This is abuse of the most serious kind,' she said.

'You were in a position of authority. You were trusted to look after these children.

'You made comments to each boy to secure their silence.'

Stanley Mohanraj came to Australia from Sri Lanka in 2012, but his family's refugee status has been rejected and they are in the process of appealing in the Federal Court.

He must serve at least three-and-a-half years behind bars before he can be eligible for parole and will then likely be deported.

Following the historic decision of the Supreme Court today which ruled that the gazette dissolving parliament as unconstitutional, President Maithripala Sirisena accepting defeat after failing to engineer a political coup is said to have requested an urgent meeting with the leaders of the United National Front (UNF).

The request had been made to MP Rauff Hakeem, Leader of the Muslim Congress which is part of the UNF. However, sources say the UNF has not responded to the President yet.

A special meeting was held between the Tamil National Alliance and President Maithripala Sirisena this morning.

According to political sources, Sirisena has requested the TNA to abstain from supporting the UNP motion to that is to be presented in parliament today to express confidence in ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

It is also reported that President Sirisena had promised to accede to all of TNA’s requests if they are loyal to him.  Sirisena had intimated that it was Wickremesinghe who was responsible for destroying the country and pointed out that the UNP leader was the one who had rejected all of Sirisena’s proposals with regard to the devolution of power with the support of racist political parties.

It is also reported that the President had promised to release all Tamil prisoners, even tomorrow, if the TNA were to extend their support to him.

Sources also said that the TNA parliamentarians who attended the meeting had left without giving a response to the president’s requests.