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Lalith
Athulathmudali Murder: the Truth
Ilankai Thamil Sangam Commentary, 7 October 2007
"..the
assassination (of Lalith Athulathmudali) was carried out not
by an LTTE suspect but by an underworld figure on contract...
premeditated murder was seen in the non-provision of proper
security for the fatal Kirullapone meeting, the planting of
evidence and wrong information given to the inquiring magistrate
in an apparently planned and deliberate manner." Sri Lanka
Presidential Commission headed by former Supreme Court Judge
Tissa Dias Bandaranayake in its report submitted on 7 October
1997
[see also
Lalith Athulathmudali and his Murderous �Scorched Earth Policy�:
Revisited - Sachi Sri Kantha, 22 April 2008]
On 23 April 1993, the
opposition party leader Mr. Lalith Athulathmudali was assassinated
at an election rally held in the town of Kirullapone.
The government immediately
accused the LTTE of this murder, and the police produced the body of
a Tamil person, Ragunathan, as the assassin. A communiqu� from the
Presidential Secretariat stated in part, "the person now known to be
Ragunathan, alias Appiah Balasingham, shot and killed Mr.
Athulathmudali and was later found dead at scene
2. Seriously injured and fearing imminent capture, he
undoubtedly took his own life by way of cyanide poisoning..."1
The allegation against the
LTTE was repeated over and over again in news reports and other
communiqu�s. Newswire services carried it to the world media. New
York Times (10 May 93) said, "Ragunathan had been identified as the
gunman who killed the opposition leader Lalith Athulathmudali..."
Even the famous Scotland
Yard became a party to this lie. A team headed by Detective
Superintendent Alec Edwards, in a report filed in July 93, said, "He
(Ragunathan) undoubtedly took his own life by way of cyanide
poisoning." [The government analyst2,
however, found no trace of cyanide in his body!]
US State Department 1993
Report on Global Terrorism enjoined, "Opposition party leader
Athulathmudali was assassinated the week before by an unidentified
lone gunman who may have been an LTTE member."
Now, a Presidential
Commission3
headed by former Supreme Court Judge Tissa Dias Bandaranayake has
said in its report submitted on 7 October 1997 that,
"the assassination was
carried out not by an LTTE suspect but by an underworld figure
on contract... premeditated murder was seen in the non-provision
of proper security for the fatal Kirullapone meeting, the
planting of evidence and wrong information given to the
inquiring magistrate in an apparently planned and deliberate
manner."
The commission said it
believed that the Tamil youth Ragunathan, "was not the assassin but
he had been killed elsewhere and his body dumped near the meeting
site to present a false picture."
1. The Text of a News Release issued by the Presidential
Secretariat of Sri Lanka; Released internationally by the
Permanent Mission of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri
Lanka to the United Nations; 16 July 1993
2. The Government Analyst, testified at the Lalith
Athulathmudali Commission that swabs taken from the mouth of
Ragunathan did not contain even a trace of cyanide. Dr. Lalantha
de Alvis, the seniormost Judicial Medical Officer in Colombo,
who conducted the autopsy on the body had earlier testified that
the body smelled of cyanide and that he found pieces of glass in
the mouth of the body.
3. AFP REPORT: FORMER PRESIDENT LINKED TO ASSASSINATIONS
TRIED TO SHIFT THE BLAME ON TAMIL TIGERS.
COLOMBO, Oct 7 (AFP) -
Sri Lanka's former president Ranasinghe Premadasa was
responsible for two high profile assassinations and tried to
shift the blame onto Tamil Tiger guerrillas, a fresh probe
reported Tuesday.
An investigation into the killings of
former minister Lalith Athulathmudali and army General
Denzil Kobbekaduwa found that president Premadasa was
"directly responsible for the two killings," state radio
reported.
State radio quoted the
findings of a special commission appointed by President
Chandrika Kumaratunga as saying that underworld elements
working for Premadasa was responsible for the killings.
The commission also
recommended the taking away of the civic rights of a
Premadasa stalwart, former housing minister Sirisena Cooray,
who is accused of suppressing evidence Athulathmudali was
shot dead during an election campaign meeting in 1993 while
Kobbekaduwa was blown up in a mine attack in the northern
Jaffna district in August 1992.
Premadasa was president
at the time and the then government blamed the
assassinations on the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) who are still fighting security forces in the
island's northeast.
Less than a week after
the assassination of Athulathmudali, Premadasa himself was
killed by a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber during a
May Day procession here.
Premadasa is also
accused of involvement in the 1988 killing of President
Kumaratunga's actor turned politician husband Vijaya
Kumaratunga who was a serious political challenger to
Premadasa.
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