Assassination

last updated 8 January 2015

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka declared a state of emergency this week after the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar raised fears of renewed civil war. A sniper shot Kadirgamar, 73, as he climbed out of his swimming pool. Police quickly blamed the attack on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that pioneered suicide bombings in its more than 20-year fight for independence. Kadirgamar, himself an ethnic Tamil, had lobbied intensely for other countries to brand the Tigers a terrorist organization. But the Tigers, who signed a cease-fire in 2002, denied responsibility for the killing. “Look inward,” S.P. Thamilchelvan, leader of the Tigers’ political wing, told the government. “We know that there are sections within the Sri Lankan Armed Forces operating with a hidden agenda to sabotage the cease-fire agreement.”