19 October 2006

Alert

Six years of impunity in murder of BBC journalist


Incident details

Mayilvaganam Nimalarajan

journalist(s)

killed
(RSF/IFEX) - Police and some judges deliberately sabotaged and then blocked judicial steps against members of the pro-government EPDP party implicated in the murder in 2000 of Tamil journalist Mayilvaganam Nimalarajan at his home in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, said Reporters Without Borders.

The result has been that six years after the death of the BBC World Service journalist, his killers have still not been tried or punished, said the worldwide press freedom organisation, calling on the government to reopen the investigation into his death.

This was the promise made recently by the government spokesman on defence matters, Keheliya Rambukwella, to the international press freedom mission to Sri Lanka, it said.

This sixth anniversary of the cowardly murder of the Tamil journalist on 19 October 2000 comes at a particularly challenging time for press freedom in Jaffna. Four media workers, three of them working for the newspaper "Uthayan", have been killed since the start of 2006 in this town which is held by government troops. Members of the EPDP are again suspects in some of these attacks.

All the suspects in the Nimalarajan case, members of the EPDP, were released in 2003, by a court in Vavuniya in the north of the country. Moreover the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) never managed to interview one of the suspects, Sebastianpillai Ramesh, better known as "Napoleon". Police never seriously made use of the physical evidence, including cartridge cases and fingerprints.



Source:

Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France
rsf (@) rsf.org
Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51
 

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More on this case

Ten years of impunity for killers of Jaffna-based journalist 20 October 2010 Six ans d'impunité pour les assassins de Mayilvaganam Nimalarajan, journaliste tamoul de la BBC 19 October 2006 Four years after his murder, journalist Mayilvaganam Nimalarajan's family demands justice 20 October 2004 RSF urges PM to help move investigation forward on second anniversary of journalist Nimalarajan's murder 21 October 2002 Fact-finding mission notes progress in investigation into journalist Nimalarajan's assassination 2 July 2002 Journalist killed one year ago, justice efforts stalled 19 October 2001 Six months after the murder of journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan, RSF queries President Kumaratunga 19 April 2001 CPJ concerned for detained journalist 17 April 2001 CPJ requests information on journalist's murder 6 April 2001 FMM condemns minister's linking of murdered journalist Milevanagam Nimalarajan to LTTE armed wing 10 November 2000 IPI condemns murder of journalist 20 October 2000 Veteran Tamil journalist murdered 20 October 2000

Sri Lanka

Web censorship targeting critical voices 10 November 2011 Death threats against newspaper editor 4 November 2011 Network chairman, general manager receive death threats 28 October 2011 Access to anti-government website blocked 20 October 2011 Newspaper chairman threatened by President Rajapaksa 3 August 2011 See all alerts: Sri Lanka


 
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