{"id":64400,"date":"2017-03-21T23:53:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T05:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=64400"},"modified":"2017-03-21T15:48:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T22:48:01","slug":"gr-shifts-blame-for-killings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/03\/21\/gr-shifts-blame-for-killings\/","title":{"rendered":"GR shifts blame for killings"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The brother of Sri Lanka\u2019s former president Mahinda Rajapakse denied Tuesday involvement in war-era death squads, blaming the then army chief for an alleged secretive campaign of extrajudicial murders.<\/p>\n<p>Gotabhaya Rajapakse has been accused of giving orders to a shadowy military outfit allegedly involved in murdering journalists and political dissidents during Sri Lanka\u2019s long-running civil war.<\/p>\n<p>In testimony filed to court on Monday, former army chief Sarath Fonseka said the death squad was run by military intelligence but took orders from Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a powerful defence secretary during his brother\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.island.lk\/modules\/modPublication\/article_title_images\/1623294089gota.jpg\" alt=\"article_image\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Gotabhaya Rajapakse said Fonseka \u2014 who led Sri Lanka\u2019s armed forces between December 2005 and July 2009 \u2014 should answer for the excesses carried out by troops under his command.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I deny any involvement with these killings,&#8221; Gotabhaya Rajapakse told AFP. &#8220;If he (Fonseka) knew there was a secret hit squad, what action did he take as army commander?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fonseka led Sri Lanka\u2019s victorious final offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009, but fell out of favour after unsuccessfully challenging \u00a0Mahinda Rajapakse for the presidency the following year.<\/p>\n<p>The Criminal Investigations Department told the court the death squad was involved in a litany of abuses against the media during \u00a0Mahinda Rajapakse\u2019s presidency, in which 17 journalists and media staff were killed.<\/p>\n<p>Just hours after submitting its report, police arrested a sixth military officer for alleged involvement in the abduction and assault of an editor in 2008. Five others were arrested last month over the same case.<\/p>\n<p>Police also allege the death squad was behind the 2009 murder of prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, whose death sparked an international outcry.<\/p>\n<p>Wickrematunga had accused Gotabhaya Rajapakse of taking kickbacks in arms purchases, including a deal to buy used MiG jet fighters, and was due to testify against him in court when he was killed.<\/p>\n<p>Mahinda Rajapakse and several members of his family are under investigation for large-scale fraud and murder during his presidency, which ended in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>All deny any wrongdoing and in turn accuse the new government of a political vendetta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy The Island The brother of Sri Lanka\u2019s former president Mahinda Rajapakse denied Tuesday involvement in war-era death squads, blaming the then army chief for an alleged secretive campaign of extrajudicial murders. Gotabhaya Rajapakse has been accused of giving orders to a shadowy military outfit allegedly involved in murdering journalists and political dissidents during Sri [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}