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The chief suspect of the assassination of Karandeniya Pradeshiya Sabha Deputy Chairman Somapala Amarakeerthi Donald Sampath Ranaweera was arrested in Kahawa today.

The Deputy Chairman was shot dead while returning home from a wedding at Uragasmanhandiya by two gunmen who arrived on a motorcycle at Uragasmanhandiya in Elpitiya on June 8.

Another suspect identified as Paththini Hakuru Asela Ranasinghe (24) of Pahalawela, North Magala, Uragasmanhandiya was arrested on June 9 by Karandeniya Police.

The last two remaining elephants of the Sinharaja forest reserve are to remain on the orders of President Maithripala Sirisena. The animals were to be moved to the Horowpothana elephant holding facility on the orders of the Minister of Wildlife, Sarath Fonseka after villagers had requested Deputy Minister of Wildlife, Palitha Thewarapperuma to remove the animals from the area. The decision by the Ministers was seen as a merely political decision taken without an understanding of the subject.

Environmentalists had vehemently opposed the move as the dry zone habitat was seen as unsuitable for the wet zone elephants while questions were also raised regarding the holding facility where many elephants have reportedly gone missing from.The move had also threatened the forest reserves UNESCO heritage status. 

The decision timely by the President came as wildlife officials were in the process of capturing elephants in order to remove them from the forest area. He has also instructed that the construction of the elephant fence to be expedited in order to protect villagers in the area.

The annual feast mass of St. Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade was held on June 13, 2018 with the participation of a large number of Catholic devotees across the island. The holy mass was presided over by His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith the Archbishop of Colombo.

Naval personnel attached to the Western Naval Command made their presence at the holy mass and provided amenities for the successful conduct of the event.

Spokesperson for the Sri Lanka Freedom Party Dilan Perera stated that the SLFP will not nominate candidates for the upcoming provincial council elections. 

Speaking at a media conference held today (14), he stated that since the SLFP’s chances of winning the upcoming election is very slim, they will be looking to bring all anti-UNP forces together to make a broad coalition under which they will nominate candidates and contest.  

Meanwhile, political sources say that the provincial council elections are due to be held in December.

Indian President Ram Nath Kovind has rejected the Tamil Nadu government’s request to release the seven prisoners convicted for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991.

Kovind conveyed to the State government that the “Centre doesn’t concur with its view” to release the prisoners. The President is bound by the advice of his Council of Ministers in such matters.

In the last four years, the State government has written twice to the Home Ministry to pardon the convicts and release them on humanitarian grounds.

“The President has rejected the Tamil Nadu government’s plea to free the prisoners on the advice of the Home Ministry. This has been conveyed to the State. The assassins of the former Prime Minister of India cannot walk free under any circumstances,” a top official told The Hindu.

On February 14, following the Supreme Court’s directions, the Home Ministry sought details on eight grounds from the State to “facilitate further” its request to release the convicts. It asked the State to furnish details such as the “physical and mental status of the convicts,” their “economic and social background” and the previous cases registered against them. The convicts are V. Sriharan alias Murugan, A.G. Perarivalan, T. Suthendraraja alias Santhan, Jayakumar, Robert Payas, Ravichandran and Nalini.

On January 23, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court gave three months to the Home Ministry to decide on Tamil Nadu’s proposal to remit the sentences of the life-term convicts. The Centre moved court against the State’s proposal, which dates back to February 19, 2014, where it said the State had decided to remit their sentences as they had already served more than 20 years in prison.

Under Section 435 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the State government has to consult the Centre before releasing prisoners who were tried by the Central Bureau of Investigation or under a central legislation.

On March 2, 2016, the then T.N Chief Secretary K. Gnanadesikan sent another communication to the MHA that it had received petitions from the convicts with requests to release them since they have spent more than 20 years in prison. “The Government, after taking into consideration the petitions of the seven convicts, has decided to remit the sentences of life imprisonment as they have already served imprisonment for 24 years,” the letter by Gnanadesikan said in the letter.

The Supreme Court in December 2015 said the State government had no power to release the convicts without the Centre’s concurrence.

Source : The Hindu

Former Minister Basil Rajapaksa said that he did not hold any discussions with the SLFP’s Group of 16. Furthermore, he said that they are not ready to accept such groups.

Rajapaksa made theses remarks to media after attending function in Colombo today (14).

He went on to say that if there isn’t any legal impediment for Mahinda Rajapaksa to contest in the upcoming Presidential elections, he would be the candidate as that is the wish of the people.

However, if he’s unable to contest, we would support any candidate that is named by the former President, he added.

He also said that the people of this country will make a decision in the future regarding those who have placed themselves on both sides of the political divide.

The date of the Ramazan festival will be revealed after convening a meeting today, the Colombo Grand Mosque has announced. The holiday was not declared yesterday as the new moon was not sighted as expected. 

The popular Muslim holiday will most likely fall on Saturday sources said.

Newly published private travel diaries of Albert Einstein by the Princeton University Press, The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein: The Far East, Palestine, and Spain, 1922-1923, have exposed Einstein's racist and xenophobic views.

Written between October 1922 and March 1923, the diaries track his experiences in Asia and the Middle East.

Einstein travelled from Spain to the Middle East and via Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, on to China and Japan. 

He describes his time in Colombo in Ceylon, writing of the people: "They live in great filth and considerable stench down on the ground, do little, and need little." 

The physicist describes arriving in Port Said in Egypt and facing "Levantines of every shade... as if spewed from hell" who come aboard their ship to sell their goods. 

But the famous physicist reserves his most cutting comments for Chinese people.

According to a piece in the Guardian about the diaries, he describes Chinese children as "spiritless and obtuse", and calls it "a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races".

In other entries he calls China "a peculiar herd-like nation," and "more like automatons than people", before claiming there is "little difference" between Chinese men and women, and questioning how the men are "incapable of defending themselves" from female "fatal attraction".

However, Einstein would later in life advocate for civil rights in the US, calling racism "a disease of white people".

The Appeal Court has extended the stay order issued preventing any action from being taken against former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa under the Public Property Act.

Rajapaksa had filed a writ petition with the Court of Appeal seeking an interim order preventing the police from arresting him in connection with the investigation into the misappropriation of public funds for the construction of the D.A. Rajapaksa museum under the Public Properties Act.

The General Secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), the venerable Galaboda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, who was found guilty of threatening the wife of missing journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, Sandya Eknaligoda, inside the premises of the Homagama Magistrate Court, has been sentenced to jail today.

The Homagama Magistrate sentenced him to a one year jail term which was subsequently reduced to six months. A fine of LKR 3000 was also imposed and was ordered to pay LKR 50,000 as compensation to Sandya Eknaligoda.

The Swiss Federal Criminal Court has given no prison terms to alleged financiers of the LTTE, the Swissinfo news reported on Thursday. It said the 13 accused were either given suspended custodial sentences or acquitted.

The court on Thursday said accusations of participation in and support of a criminal organisation did not stand and therefore, released all of the accused.

It noted that the hierarchical link between the LTTE and the  World Tamil Coordinating Committee (WTCC) was not sufficiently established. The judges also felt there was not enough concrete proof to consider the LTTE as a criminal organisation.

While the federal prosecutor Juliette Noto had asked for prison terms of between 18 months and six years for the accused, the court did not oblige.

Eight of the thirteen on the docks were acquitted of all charges. The others were only found guilty of fraud. WTCC’s finance manager and one of the accused who arranged loans from Bank Now (owned by Credit Suisse) on false pretences got a 24-month suspended sentence. The president of WTCC got 21 months while the finance manager’s deputy got 20 months in suspended sentences.

The whole process is estimated to have cost close to 4 million Swiss francs (CHF) which the federal government will have to bear. In addition to this amount, compensation for those acquitted, as well as lawyers’ fees total to almost CHF5 million. The accused will have to pay part of their lawyers’ expenses provided they have the financial means to do so.

During the eight-week trial, which opened in January and closed in March, the federal prosecutor requested sentences of up to six-and-a-half years in prison. The proceedings cost CHF3.8 million.

The 13 defendants - 12 Tamils or Swiss citizens of Tamil origin plus one German - were accused of participating in or supporting a criminal organisation, fraud, forgery, money laundering and extortion.

During her indictment, Juliette Noto, a federal prosecutor, described a sophisticated system used by the WTCC to raise funds largely for armed struggle from the Tamil community in Switzerland. The Tamil community in Switzerland was systematically registered and its ability to pay assessed. Families who refused to pay were threatened, she said.

Noto cast the LTTE, who are represented in Switzerland by the WTCC, as a violent movement "whose effectiveness inspired Al-Qaeda".

Showing a picture of the WTCC leader behind a machine gun and images of child soldiers, she enumerated the attacks and crimes attributed to the Tamil Tigers. The prosecutor sought to demonstrate the informed involvement of the accused in supporting and funding the LTTE.

In their pleadings, the defence invoked the legitimacy of the Tigers' struggle against the Sri Lankan government's repression of the Tamil minority. They argued that the money collected in Switzerland by the accused for the WTCC was mainly used for humanitarian purposes. The defence also challenged the prosecution of the accused at a time when Tiger resistance was collapsing in Sri Lanka.

During the hearings, the accused spoke at length about the repression suffered in Sri Lanka and the atrocities committed by the security forces. They kept silent when asked about their specific involvement.

Source : Daily Mirror

The Cabinet of Ministers granted approval yesterday to establish an Office for Reparation to provide reparations in a transparent manner to individuals affected by conflict, political, civil disobedience or enforced disappearances. 

Co-cabinet spokesperson, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said that the proposal has been put to the Cabinet by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with the request for it to be sent to the Legal Draftsman and the subsequent bill be gazetted and presented to Parliament. 

Senaratne further stated that all those who have been affected from the conflict will be able to seek reparations. 

“Those in the South, who were affected by bomb blasts and other terrorist acts, will also be compensated through the process", the Minister added.

He also said that the government will come up with a proper mechanism to identify individuals who are eligible for compensation.