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Sri Lankan Police Seek Temple Priest Accused of Pawning Gold to Fund Gambling

Sri Lankan Police Seek Temple Priest Accused of Pawning Gold to Fund Gambling

COLOMBO — A Sri Lankan court has ordered the arrest of the chief priest of a Hindu temple in central Colombo after police said he repeatedly removed gold jewellery from the temple’s safe, pawned it and used the proceeds for gambling before redeeming and returning the valuables. The Fort Magistrate’s Court also imposed a travel ban on the priest, identified as Satheeskumar Gurukkal, 34, who served as the chief priest of the Sri Sivasubramaniyar Temple in Slave Island and has since gone into hidi
August 2026 JM COURTS
Our Reporter

Our Reporter
Pillayan Among Four Indicted in Killing of Eastern University Vice-Chancellor

Pillayan Among Four Indicted in Killing of Eastern University Vice-Chancellor

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s attorney general has indicted former Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan and three other men in the abduction and killing of an Eastern University vice-chancellor who disappeared in Colombo nearly two decades ago, bringing one of the country’s most prominent wartime disappearance cases before a criminal court. The indictments were filed in the Polonnaruwa High Court over the abduction and killing of Prof. Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath, who was vic
August 2026 JM Exclusive
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Our Reporter
Former Student Sues University of Colombo, Seeking Rs. 5 Million Over Alleged Exam Irregularities

Former Student Sues University of Colombo, Seeking Rs. 5 Million Over Alleged Exam Irregularities

COLOMBO — A former diploma student at the University of Colombo has filed a lawsuit seeking Rs. 5 million in damages, alleging examination irregularities, arbitrary marking and retaliation by lecturers. Sanath Kumara Athukorala filed the action in the Nugegoda District Court, naming several current and former university officials and lecturers as defendants. Athukorala was enrolled in the 2022/23 Advanced Diploma in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management programme offered by the univer
JM COURTS August 2026
Our Reporter

Our Reporter
Sallay’s Counsel Questions Political and Religious Influence Over Easter Sunday Investigation

Sallay’s Counsel Questions Political and Religious Influence Over Easter Sunday Investigation

COLOMBO — A lawyer for Sri Lanka’s former intelligence chief Suresh Sallay has questioned the independence of the continuing investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, arguing before the Court of Appeal that criminal investigations should remain free from political and religious influence. President’s Counsel Sanjeewa Jayawardena, appearing for Maj. Gen. Sallay, made the submissions on Monday, Aug. 10, as the court considered applications by several parties seeking to intervene in Sall
JM COURTS August 2026
Our Reporter

Our Reporter
Sri Lanka’s Judicial Age Fight Is About More Than Age

Sri Lanka’s Judicial Age Fight Is About More Than Age

COLOMBO — There were men in the hall on the morning of 29 July who have spent much of the past decade attacking one another in public. Ali Sabry, justice and then foreign minister under Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Udaya Gammanpila, a minister of the same period who has fought much of Colombo’s political class in court and on air. M.A. Sumanthiran of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi, who spent a career litigating against the governments the other two sat in. And Lal Wijenayake, of the National People’s Po
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Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor
Cardinal Urges Court Not to Obstruct Easter Bombings Investigation

Cardinal Urges Court Not to Obstruct Easter Bombings Investigation

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Colombo Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith has urged Sri Lanka's Court of Appeal to allow the ongoing investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings to proceed without interference, arguing that previous inquiries had failed to properly investigate the attacks and that the current investigation was moving in the right direction. The submissions were made Thursday by President's Counsel Shamil Perera, appearing for Cardinal Ranjith in an intervening petition filed in co
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Our Reporter
One Spoke of Karma. The Other Named a Conspiracy.

One Spoke of Karma. The Other Named a Conspiracy.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Moments before a Colombo court sentenced them to death on Friday for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, Sri Lanka's former police chief and former defence secretary were each invited, as the law requires, to explain why they should not receive the death penalty. Their answers could hardly have been more different: one was a quiet surrender to fate; the other, a defiant insistence that the men he said truly bore responsibility for the massacre remained shield
JM COURTS August 2026
Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam
The Easter Bombings: Anatomy of a State Failure

The Easter Bombings: Anatomy of a State Failure

By Aruliniyan Mahalingam At 8:27 on the morning of April 21, 2019, a foreign intelligence service sent one last message to the head of Sri Lanka’s State Intelligence Service. The bombers would probably move between six and ten that morning, it said, and one of their targets was a Methodist church in Colombo. Surveillance teams were being deployed. The police, it added, had already been warned. The first explosions came shortly before nine, less than twenty minutes later. Over the course of th
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Aruliniyan Mahalingam

Aruliniyan Mahalingam