Colombo (AFP) - Sri Lankan authorities are investigating a claim that the toppled president's younger brother ran a "death squad" and ordered a high-profile newspaper editor's assassination, a police spokesman said Sunday.
Former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse ordered the hit on Lasantha Wickrematunga in January 2009, ex-public relations minister Mervyn Silva alleged in a formal complaint lodged with police Saturday, the spokesman said.
Wickrematunga was fatally shot in 2009, just days before he was due to testify in a defamation case Rajapakse had filed against his paper, which had been highly critical of the then-ruling family.
"We have received a complaint that Gotabhaya Rajapakse was responsible for abductions, assaults and murder," police spokesman Ajith Rohana told AFP. "Three murders have been mentioned and one is that of Lasantha Wickrematunga. He (Rajapakse) is accused of running a death squad."
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Former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse ordered the hit on Lasantha Wickrematunga in January 2009, ex-public relations minister Mervyn Silva alleged in a formal complaint lodged with police Saturday, the spokesman said.
Wickrematunga was fatally shot in 2009, just days before he was due to testify in a defamation case Rajapakse had filed against his paper, which had been highly critical of the then-ruling family.
"We have received a complaint that Gotabhaya Rajapakse was responsible for abductions, assaults and murder," police spokesman Ajith Rohana told AFP. "Three murders have been mentioned and one is that of Lasantha Wickrematunga. He (Rajapakse) is accused of running a death squad."
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