[Directly
addressing the then-president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the slain editor predicted an
inquiry would swiftly follow his death, “but like all the inquiries you have
ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too”.]
By Michael Safi and Amantha
Perera
 |
|
A
protester holds a portrait of Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was assassinated by
gunmen on
motorcyles as he went to work in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Photograph:
Eranga Jayawardena/AP
|
New autopsy ordered for Lasantha
Wickrematunge, who was gunned down during the civil war after predicting he
would be killed by the government
The body of a celebrated Sri Lankan
journalist gunned down in the final months of the country’s brutal civil war in
2009 will be exhumed on Tuesday as part of a fresh investigation into his
death.
Lasantha Wickrematunge’s grave in Colombo has
been under armed guard since the new autopsy was announced earlier in
September, two months after a military intelligence official was arrested in
connection with the killing of the former editor of the Sunday Leader
newspaper.
Wickrematunge had foreseen his impending
murder and wrote an editorial that was published three days after he was shot
dead by gunmen on motorcycles while driving to work in January 2009.
“When finally I am killed, it will be the
government that kills me,” he wrote, in a 2,500-word piece that was republished
by the Guardian and New Yorker and attracted international scrutiny of the
harassment faced by Sri Lankan journalists.
Directly addressing the then-president,
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the slain editor predicted an inquiry would swiftly follow
his death, “but like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing
will come of this one, too”.
The investigation did indeed languish, until
Rajapaksa’s surprise election defeat in January 2015, when his successor, the
current president Maithripala Sirisena, promised to find the journalist’s
killers.
Sirisena in March appointed a secretary to
examine violence against journalists under Rajapaksa’s near decade-long rule,
including Wickrematunge’s murder and the disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda,
a cartoonist last seen being bundled into a white van near his office in
January 2010.
An army intelligence officer identified in
local media as P Udalgama was arrested in July as part of the investigation and
remains in custody.
According to court documents, investigating
authorities requested that Wickrematunge’s body be exhumed again because two
separate medical examinations at the time of his death produced contradictory
results: one finding he had died due to gunshot injuries, the other finding no
evidence of gun wounds at all.
Press freedom was “severely restricted” under
the former president according to watchdog groups, particularly in the months
surrounding the end of the civil war between the government and the separatist
Tamil Tigers in May 2009.
Under Wickrematunge, the fiercely
anti-establishment Sunday Leader closely scrutinised the army’s conduct of the
civil war, often in the face of censorship orders, armed raids and arson
attacks on the newspaper’s offices.
Wickrematunge himself was beaten twice and
his home was sprayed by machine-gun fire. His first wife, Raine, fled to
Australia with their children after threats against the family.
Media colleagues of the late editor were
reluctant to welcome news of the fresh exhumation as a sign his killers might
soon be found.
“The [investigation] has been very slow, too
slow, given the pledges made by this government before it came to power,” said
Lasantha Ruhunage, the president of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association
The union has been lobbying for a
presidential commission to investigate Rajapaksa-era attacks on journalists,
and Ruhunage said he was concerned the appointment of a secretary in March
meant “the government will bear the financial responsibility for such attacks
but no convictions will be forthcoming”.
“We feel that is because members of the
government armed forces could be implicated is some of these attacks,” he
added.
“Even in [Wickrematunge’s] case we feel that
the chances of any convictions is still remote, it could happen, but right now,
I am not optimistic.”
Raine Wickrematunge, who was divorced from
her ex-husband before his death, said news his body would be re-examined was “a
huge shock”.
“We have gone through so much, the children
have had their hearts broken and now the band-aid is going to be ripped out and
the wound re-opened,” she said.
But she expressed faith the “process of
uncovering the murderers is not happening in a half-hearted manner anymore” and
was no longer the subject of political interference.
“This is such a welcome change after the
years of sham investigation we had to endure for several years after the
murder,” she said
Rajapaksa’s election defeat in 2015 – a
result he reportedly resisted by trying to order a state of emergency as
results came in – has ushered in significant positive reforms in the island
nation, according to human rights groups.
Restrictions on media, including internet
censorship, have been largely lifted, and the constitution has been amended to
restore the independence of the police, judiciary and public service
commissions.
The country also plans to establish a South
Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission to examine crimes committed
during the three-decade civil war.
Abuses by security forces remains an issue,
advocates against torture say, recording at least 17 cases under Sirisena’s
administration, including Briton Velauthapillai Renukaruban, who says he was
and beaten in June while visiting the north of the country to be married.
The caption in this article was corrected to
state that Lasantha Wickrematunge was assassinated by gunmen on motorcyles as
he went to work in Colombo, not “killed during a protest in Colombo”.
