JAFFNA: Police investigating an alleged mass grave on Mandaitivu, an island off the Jaffna Peninsula, told a court on Tuesday that the Sri Lankan Army had not answered their request for information about its presence on the island in 1990. Families say dozens of young Tamil men were detained by soldiers on Mandaitivu that year and never seen again. The police had asked the army for records showing whether it maintained a camp at the site named in the complaint, and for the names of officers sta

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's Department of Prisons has stopped sending inmates from three Colombo prisons to court after measles was confirmed among detainees, the department's spokesman said. No inmates from the Colombo Remand Prison, Magazine Prison or Welikada Prison were produced in court on Monday, Senaka Pallethenna, a commissioner of prisons and the department's media spokesman, said. The department has notified the courts concerned in writing, and the suspension is temporary, he sai

ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka – A former soldier on trial for raping a doctor inside her official quarters at Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital has been arrested again after a security camera recorded him climbing into a house in Galnewa through a bathroom window, police said. Police have asked the court to revoke his bail. K.B. Madhuranga Ratnayake, 35, known locally as "Bunty," was taken into custody by Galnewa police on the night of Nov. 6. Police said the footage showed him entering through the wind

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Japan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka on Thursday highlighted plans to supply unmanned aerial vehicles to the Sri Lanka Navy and a new exchange programme for military personnel. Both are part of a security relationship that Tokyo has widened over the past year. The ambassador, Akio Isomata, described the initiatives at a reception the Japanese Embassy in Colombo held for the 72nd anniversary of the founding of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. Guests included Sri Lanka’s deputy defenc