Sri Lanka’s president has promised to free jailed former army chief Sarath Fonseka unconditionally and at the earliest opportunity, the ex-general’s wife said yesterday.
Anoma Fonseka said she met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Wednesday and that he assured her that her husband would be freed as soon as possible.
“I was promised that my husband will be cleared of all charges and released unconditionally,” she said.
Photo: AFP
There was no comment from Rajapakse’s office, but an official confirmed on Wednesday that the retired four-star general, who unsuccessfully challenged Rajapakse in Sri Lanka’s 2010 elections, would be released “within days.”
Fonseka fell out with the government over who should take credit for winning the separatist war against the Tamil Tiger rebels in May 2009. He challenged Rajapakse after quitting the army.
Two weeks after his election defeat, Fonseka was detained on a charge of corruption relating to military procurements. He was then sentenced to 30 months in prison in September 2010.
Earlier on Wednesday, Rajapakse met members of Fonseka’s Democratic National Alliance (DNA) party to discuss the terms of his release, DNA legislator Tiran Alles said.
The moves come ahead of talks later this week between Sri Lanka’s foreign minister G. L. Peiris and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington.
The US has been critical of Sri Lanka’s rights record during the final stages of the civil war, which ended with victory for government forces in May 2009. Washington has repeatedly urged Colombo to release Fonseka.
In November, Fonseka was sentenced to three more years in jail for saying that Tiger rebels who surrendered had been killed on the orders of the president’s brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who is defense secretary.
Fonseka has also angered the government by saying he would testify before any international tribunal probing possible war crimes charges after the UN said thousands of civilians were killed in the last months of fighting.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
RSS