Army ordered to hand over information related to Lasantha’s murder to CID

The Mount Lavinia Magistrate court yesterday ordered the Sri Lanka Army to hand over documents and other information related to the investigation of the 2009 murder of a senior journalist. The Magistrate ordered the Army Commander to hand over documents and other information related to the investigation in to the murder of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).

The magistrate made this order considering the facts presented by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), state media said.

Lasantha Wickrematunge, the Chief Editor of the popular English weekly Sunday Leader, was assassinated on 8 January 2009 by four assailants who stopped him on his way to his office on Attidiya-Mt. Lavinia road, in a suburb of the Sri Lankan capital and opened fire at him.

In an editorial written shortly before his death, and that was published posthumously, Wickrematunge accused the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government of intending to silence him and voiced his commitment for press freedom at the risk of his life.