By Walter Jayawardhana

Anti-government political activist Pakiyasothy Saravanamuttu has admitted in a statement to the Police that the dead threat against him was limited to a four line note mailed to him anonymously that led to a huge newspaper advertisement that conincided with the arrival of an important UN official to the country.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa addressing ruling party representatives of Galle District said the advertisement has been published in order to get certain strictures imposed against the country so that those could be used as a political weapon against the country by the Opposition.

While the four-lined anonymous death threat was never preceded or followed by similar threat the advertisement targeting the government arising from the threat appeared on the same day the UN Deputy Secretary General Lynn Pascoe arrived in the island one month later from the original letter arrived, Pakyathothi Saravanamuttu has said.

Saravanamuttu , who is often hailed by the pro-LTTE press as a leading intellectual of the country also has told the police that the death letter has not been associated with , following suspicious white vans, threatening phone calls or any other form of communications of similar nature.

Saravanamuttu told investigators that the threat and other incidents happened in the following order: Receipt of threat by mail: August 20. Signing a petition about it: September 8. Advertisement carrying the petition: September 16 (the day Lynn Pescoe arrived in Sri Lanka). The reason it appeared in an English newspaper is to project a negative image of the country to the foreign visitors, the state owned ITN news said.

The Police have extensively questioned six suspects on this.