Lanka Govt challenges verdict in Tamil legislator murder case

Sri Lankan Government today challenged a high court verdict which acquitted five naval intelligence officers in the 2006 murder case of an outspoken Tamil lawmaker, who advocated greater self-rule for the minority community.
The Attorney General filed an appeal against the Colombo High Court's last month verdict, seeking retrial of the murder case of former Tamil National Alliance Jaffna district legislator Nadaraja Raviraj, court officials said.
Raviraj and his driver were shot dead outside his home in his car in Colombo in November, 2006.
The police's Crime Investigations Department had found the vehicle and the weapons allegedly used for the murder.

All the five suspects who were acquitted and released were naval intelligence officers, including two who had worked with the LTTE previously.
The Tamil groups expressed unhappiness at the verdict as it was given by a jury which consisted of all Sinhala majority community members.
Raviraj was an advocate for greater self-rule for minority Tamils and had explained the Tamil perspective of the conflict in Sinhala, the language of the majority. He was shot dead during the country's three-decade-long civil war with Tamil Tiger rebels, which ended in 2009.