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JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Douglas Devananda, a former Sri Lankan cabinet minister and longtime Tamil political leader, has demanded 100 million rupees in damages from the Tamil-language newspaper Uthayan, accusing it of publishing a false and defamatory account of his recent questioning by investigators. The demand follows an inquiry last week in which Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department questioned Mr. Devananda over statements made by Hanzeer Azad Maulana, a former aide to Sivanesathurai C

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Patali Champika Ranawaka, a former Sri Lankan cabinet minister, said on Monday that efforts were underway in the country’s east to revive the Islamist extremist network of Zahran Hashim, who led the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, and that some defendants acquitted last week in the main trial over the attacks had joined it. Speaking at a news conference in Colombo, Mr. Ranawaka said a man named Siyam had been appointed in the Kalmunai area, in the Eastern Province, as a new le

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka — Shanakiyan Rasamanickam, a Tamil opposition lawmaker and the parliamentary leader of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, on Monday called Rohana Wijeweera a “terrorist” and questioned why the Sri Lankan state could officially commemorate the founder of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the main constituent of the governing National People’s Power coalition, while police removed a bust of the Tamil Tiger figure Thileepan from a memorial site in Nallur, Jaffna. “Tributes are hel

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka — A magistrate in northern Sri Lanka on Monday gave the police one more month to finish investigating an allegation that a lawmaker from the governing party assaulted a village official who was carrying out relief work during Cyclone Ditwah last year. The complaint concerns K. Ilankumaran, a member of Parliament for Jaffna District from the National People's Power, the coalition led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. He is accused of assaulting a Grama Niladhari, or v

COLOMBO: The United States has trained officials from the Sri Lanka Navy and several civilian agencies to detect and respond to the smuggling of nuclear and radioactive materials, the U.S. Embassy in Colombo said on Monday. The five-day workshop, held from Sept. 21 to 25, was conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence in partnership with the navy. According to the embassy, American experts worked with Sri Lankan participants to draft standa

NEW DELHI — A delegation from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the Marxist-rooted party at the center of Sri Lanka's government, is in New Delhi this week for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, the latest sign of a turnaround for a movement that once treated India as a threat to Sri Lankan sovereignty. The five-member delegation, led by the JVP’s general secretary, Tilvin Silva, who is often regarded as the most powerful man in Sri Lanka, arrived on Sept. 27 at the

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The mayor of Jaffna on Sunday denied that the city council or her party had any part in the police removal of a bust of Thileepan, a Tamil Tiger political leader, and said the council had refused repeated police demands for a written promise that the memorial would be taken down. "We strongly condemn the removal," Mayor Mathivathani Vivekanandarajah told reporters at the Jaffna Municipal Council. "Neither the Municipal Council nor the leadership of our party was responsible