Monitor Memo

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Lawyers for Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay, the former head of Sri Lanka's State Intelligence Service, told the Court of Appeal on Thursday that the senior police officers investigating him over the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings had themselves been faulted by official inquiries for failing to prevent the attacks. The argument was made during a hearing on a writ petition filed by General Sallay, who is challenging the legality of his arrest and subsequent detention under the Preventi

COLOMBO — Japan and the United Nations Development Programme signed an agreement with the Sri Lankan government on Wednesday to fund disaster waste clearance and the rehabilitation of community facilities in areas devastated by Cyclone Ditwah, which struck the island in late November and affected an estimated 1.7 million people. The project will focus on the Central Province — the districts of Kandy, Matale, and Nuwara Eliya — where the cyclone caused some of the worst damage to infrastructure,

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The opposition figures staging a sit-in for a detained former intelligence chief are not defending him out of concern for his welfare but are trying to halt the investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings before it reaches the people who planned them, Sri Lanka’s justice minister told Parliament on Tuesday. Harshana Nanayakkara, the minister of justice and national integration, said the campaign on behalf of Suresh Sallay, a retired major general and former head of t

COLOMBO — More than 200 officials from Sri Lanka's central bank, licensed financial institutions, corporate entities, and public sector bodies have completed training in applying the country's Green Finance Taxonomy, part of a European Union-funded effort to direct more financing toward environmentally sustainable projects. The taxonomy, developed by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and published in May 2022, sets out a framework for classifying which economic activities count as environmentally s

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s former military intelligence chief, retired Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay, has begun a hunger strike while in police custody, according to Udaya Gammanpila, a former member of Parliament who has also acted as one of his lawyers. Speaking at a news conference that he said had been convened at the request of Sallay’s wife and son, Mr. Gammanpila said the retired officer had resorted to the protest over conditions in detention. Mr. Gammanpila said Sallay’s son visited h