Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lakshman Kadirgamar, was assassinated on Friday night by unidentified snipers in the capital, the military and hospital sources said.
Kadirgamar (73) was hit by several bullets in the head and chest as he returned to his tightly guarded private residence in the centre of Colombo, army chief Shantha Kottegoda said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing, but Kadirgamar himself had often publicly said he was a target of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Police said they found spent ammunition near the scene in an upmarket Colombo suburb and launched a large-scale manhunt for two snipers, with police setting up road blocks and air-force helicopters circling the sky.
Kadirgamar had been a key figure in President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government, leading an international campaign against the Tigers, who have been outlawed in several countries, including the United States and Britain.
The minister had attended an official function and driven back to his private home for a swim when he was shot several times, officials said.
”He was at his home when he was hit by a sniper,” Kottegoda said. ”He had just returned from an official function near his house when the attack took place.”
The veteran minister was rushed to the National hospital, where four neurosurgeons and cardiothoracic surgeons struggled for 70 minutes to save his life, hospital spokesperson Pushpa Soysa said.
Kadirgamar was the most senior Sri Lankan leader to be assassinated since a bomb attack killed president Ranasinghe Premadasa in May 1993.
A close confidante of Kumaratunga, he was one of the most tightly guarded ministers in the Sri Lankan Cabinet and had nearly 100 elite bodyguards deployed to protect him.
Kumaratunga herself had escaped an assassination attempt but lost her right eye in a December 1999 bombing blamed on Tigers. She, however, invited Norway to help bring the Tigers to the table in January 2000.
Police had only a few days before the killing drawn up plans to further improve Kadirgamar’s security with the deployment of additional guards.
The military and police late on Friday stepped up security in the capital as part of their manhunt for two men they believe were the snipers who had taken up position about two doors from the minister’s private residence.
”We have found spent ammunition at a house nearby,” a police official said.
A house-to-house search for the snipers was launched in the Buller’s Lane area of the Cinnamon Gardens residential quarter, police said.
All vehicles entering and leaving the city were thoroughly checked, while the air force brought in helicopters for aerial surveillance.
Kadirgamar, a member of the minority Tamil community and a native of Jaffna, the heartland of Tamil separatism in the island nation’s north, was also a vociferous opponent of the Tamil Tiger rebels.
The Tigers refused to acknowledge him as a member of their community and dubbed him a traitor to their cause.
Oxford-educated Kadirgamar had been foreign affairs minister under Kumaratunga since 1994, with a break between 2001 and 2004, and claimed credit for having the Tigers declared a terrorist organisation in several countries. — Sapa-AFP