{"id":82296,"date":"2018-10-24T19:28:03","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T01:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=82296"},"modified":"2018-10-24T12:02:20","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T19:02:20","slug":"sri-lanka-arrests-navy-officer-over-wartime-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/10\/24\/sri-lanka-arrests-navy-officer-over-wartime-murders\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka arrests navy officer over wartime murders"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0Courtesy Mail Online\u00a0<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

Police said the victims, both from the Tamil minority group, were kidnapped by naval officers and later killed despite their families paying a ransom for their release<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Sri Lankan police arrested and charged a senior naval officer Wednesday for the abduction and murder of two Tamil businessmen during the final stages of the island’s brutal civil war.<\/p>\n

Lieutenant Commander K. A. Dayananda was taken before a magistrate and remanded in custody over the double murder, which investigators believe took place in January 2009.<\/p>\n

\"Police<\/p>\n

Police said the victims, both from the Tamil minority group, were kidnapped by naval officers and later killed despite their families paying a ransom for their release.<\/p>\n

“The vehicle of the two victims was taken to Welisara navy camp on the pretext that it contained a bomb,” a police official told AFP.<\/p>\n

“Later, they dismantled the vehicle and sold the parts after having killed the two men.”<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka is investigating the disappearance and presumed murder of 11 young men between 2008 and 2009 in the dying days of the 37-year civil war between government forces and Tamil separatists.<\/p>\n

Several navy officers are currently on bail in connection with the alleged disappearances. The missing men are believed to have been murdered before the brutal conflict ended in 2009.<\/p>\n

Senior military figures and close associates of former strongman president Mahinda Rajapakse have been accused of murders, cover-ups and extortion during his decade of rule.<\/p>\n

Several intelligence officers have also been released on bail for charges related to the assassination of a prominent newspaper editor and attacks on other journalists and dissidents.<\/p>\n

The January 2009 killing of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga, a fierce critic of then-president Rajapakse, sparked international outcry and shone a light on human rights violations in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Wickrematunga had accused Rajapakse’s defence secretary and brother Gotabhaya of taking kickbacks in arms purchases, and was due to testify in court when he was murdered.<\/p>\n

Gotabhaya Rajapakse has denied running death squads.<\/p>\n

The Rajapakses are under investigation for large-scale financial fraud and murder during Mahinda’s presidency, which ended in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Courtesy Mail Online\u00a0 Police said the victims, both from the Tamil minority group, were kidnapped by naval officers and later killed despite their families paying a ransom for their release Sri Lankan police arrested and charged a senior naval officer Wednesday for the abduction and murder of two Tamil businessmen during the final stages of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82296","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=82296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}