COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) – A Sri Lankan court acquitted a rebel on Wednesday who became a lawmaker on charges of being involved in the murder of a Tamil lawmaker at the height of the island’s long civil war.
The court in the eastern city of Batticaloa released Sivanesathurai Chandarakanthan, who won a seat while in detention in last August’s parliamentary elections, representing a party that supports President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Another four were also released.
The Attorney General’s Department told the court earlier this week that it does not intend to continue the case against Chandrakanthan.
Chandrakanthan was a former child soldier from the rebel Tamil Tiger group who fought a quarter-century civil war to create an independent state for Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil minority in the north and east of the island. He later joined a renegade faction that emerged from the largest division in the rebel group in 2004 and served as a paramilitary group in support of government forces.
His faction played a key role in the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in the eastern province, a precursor to his total defeat in 2009. Allegations of kidnappings, torture and murders against his faction have never been properly investigated.
He then entered electoral politics and became the chief minister of the Eastern Province, supported by the government.
With the electoral defeat of then president Mahinda Rajapaksa, the current president’s older brother, Chandrakanthan was arrested and charged with involvement in the shooting death of Tamil lawmaker Joseph Pararajasingham, supported by rebels, during the midnight Christmas service at a church in Batticaloa in 2005.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa during his 2019 campaign promised to free members of the armed forces accused of abuses during the war. Last March, he forgave a soldier on death row for killing eight civilians, including a 5-year-old child.
Rajapaksa was a senior defense officer and played a decisive role in the military campaign against the rebels led by his older brother, the president, who is now the prime minister.