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COLOMBO — Sri Lanka's deputy defence minister denied Monday that fugitive underworld figure Kanjipani Imran, wanted in connection with international drug trafficking, had been arrested in Italy, saying police were still trying to catch him. Several local outlets reported earlier in the day that Imran, whose full name is Mohamed Nazeem Mohamed Imran, had been taken into custody there. Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekara said the reports were false and appeared to stem from confusion over r

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — In May 2025, a 75-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil man landed at Palaly airport after decades as a refugee in Tamil Nadu. He had returned with the help of the United Nations refugee agency and carried the clearances his journey required. Immigration officials arrested him at the airport. The Criminal Investigation Department produced him before the Mallakam Magistrate's Court, which remanded him after objections to bail. His alleged offense was that he had left Sri Lanka decades e

By: Aruliniyan Mahalingam Twenty-one years after Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s high commissioner to India has remembered the former foreign minister as the man who helped inspire her to join the diplomatic service and set a standard that continued to shape her career. Mahishini Colonne, herself widely regarded in Sri Lankan diplomatic circles as one of the country’s most accomplished career diplomats, said Wednesday that Kadirgamar was foreign minister when she e

By Aruliniyan Mahalingam JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — It was around 4:15 in the afternoon of Aug. 4, 2006. The men who came through the gate asked in Sinhala what the aid workers were doing there when everyone else in the town had fled, according to an account assembled by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) from police sources in Muttur. The staff answered that their office in Trincomalee had told them to stay and wait to be collected. A home guard interrupted and said they were Tamil Tig