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Sri Lanka reeling from death link
telegraph.co.uk,
11/01/2004.
Sri Lanka may seem far away now that England's series there, with its strange goings-on, has finished. But the island's tangled cricket politics, culminating in a man being shot dead two days ago, are coming ever closer.
Two investigators from the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit flew to Sri Lanka on Thursday to conduct an independent inquiry into the money found in the hotel room of the Sri Lankan batsman Marvan Atapattu last month after the Kandy Test, which ended in a draw after Sri Lanka had posted unnecessarily defensive fields on the final day. While they are there, the ACSU investigators will have plenty else to examine.
Sri Lanka's cricket is dominated by three key figures. Two of them are former players: Aravinda de Silva, the chairman of selectors, and Duleep Mendis, the chief executive of the Sri Lankan Board. De Silva was one of two Sri Lankans to be mentioned in the report into match-fixing by India's Central Bureau of Investigation, in which the Indian bookmaker Mukesh Gupte testified that he had paid de Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga for fixing the Lucknow Test of 1994. A subsequent judicial inquiry in Sri Lanka exonerated them on the grounds that Gupte's evidence was 'inadequate and untested'.
More...
Published: Sat Jan 10 21:45:01 EST 2004
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Ceasefire continues despite stalled peace process
Alladin Hussein in Colombo,
January 10, 2004, 10.17 pm.
Despite the stalled peace process, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission today announced that the Ceasefire Agreement signed between the UNF Government and the LTTE in February 2001 was intact, and there has been no change in the ceasefire monitoring procedure.
The Monitoring Mission also assured that the monitors continued their activities despite the political impasse between the two leaders in the South.
Meanwhile the United National Front government has once again called upon President Chandrika Kumaratunga to hand over the necessary powers to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe so that he could continue the peace process. The government also claimed that they were not interested in the three ministries taken over by Ms. Kumaratunga in November last year, but merely needed ‘certain powers’ so that they could continue the process without any obstacle. The government made this announcement yesterday in Parliament.
Published: Sat Jan 10 11:31:15 EST 2004
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Underworld leader’s murder takes a new turn, suspect’s statement false
Alladin Hussein in Colombo,
January 10, 2004, 10.22 pm.
The Colombo Crime Division today began to investigate the authenticity of the statements given to them by the gunmen who killed underworld gang leader Dhammika Amarasinghe yesterday. The suspect has also been remanded till January 23.
According to police sources, even though the suspect has claimed that he had murdered the underworld leader merely to take revenge of another murder, reportedly carried out by Dhammika Amarasinghe, the sources point out that the murder might even have some connection with the victim’s ongoing case, which also involves Sri Lanka Cricket and Telecom Chief Thilanga Sumathipala. A very senior police official is reported to have claimed that the gunmen’s claim is false.
The police said that four armed prison officials and four police officers had been deployed for the protection of the suspect, when the murder took pace. Police are also investigating as to how the killing took place, when such a security measure had been provided to the suspect.
Published: Sat Jan 10 11:27:59 EST 2004
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2004: TLA
wishes you a very
Happy New Year!
