Ex-Sri Lanka leader's brother accused of orchestrating high-profile newspaper editor's assassination

Former Sri Lankan president's brother has reportedly been accused of orchestrating the assassination of a high-profile newspaper's editor.

According to the Express Tribune, a police spokesman said that ex-public relations minister Mervyn Silva alleged in a formal complaint lodged with police Saturday that former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse ordered the hit on Lasantha Wickrematunga in January 2009.

Wickrematunga was shot to death in 2009 before he could testify in a defamation case that Rajapakse had filed against his paper for publishing articles critical of the then-ruling family.

Police spokesperson Ajith Rohana was quoted in the report as saying that the police had received a complaint that Gotabhaya Rajapakse was responsible for abductions, assaults and murder, adding three murders have been mentioned and one is that of Lasantha Wickrematunga.

Rohana further confirmed that Rajapakse was accused of running a death squad.