A representative of the International Press Institute – Sverre Tom Radøy, a senior journalist with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) who has significant reporting experience in Sri Lanka – attended the trial against Sri Lankan newspaper The Sunday Leader on 19 October 2010 in an effort to provide an international presence and to monitor the ongoing legal action against the leading opposition newspaper. The hearing on Tuesday related to a defamation case filed against the Sunday Leader over a series of articles highlighting alleged irregularities in the purchase by the country’s government of arms and aircraft.

According to IPI monitor Sverre Tom Radøy (who wrote a book about Sri Lanka after spending two years in the country), “The Sunday Leader and its staff deserve even more respect and attention from the international society, the media in particular. The editor, Lasanthe Wikrematunge, was brutally gunned down, has become a South-Asian parallel to the late Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Radøy noted: “What’s at stake in the courtroom in Colombo these days, is whether the secretary of defense (Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the brother of Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa) will succeed in closing down the most outspoken newspaper in Sri Lanka. The fear of an unfair trial is obvious. If The Sunday Leader closes down, Sri Lanka will lose a very significant reason to be evaluated as a democracy as such and 22 million people will suffer from the lack of its most important watchdog.”

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is reportedly seeking one billion Sri Lankan rupees (LKR) (approx. 6.5 million Euros) in damages for articles published in 2008.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa sued the newspaper after a series of articles were published in 2008 highlighting the outcome of investigations carried out by the newspaper showing alleged irregularities in the purchase, by the Sri Lankan government, of arms and aircraft.  In another court case he is seeking a further LKR 1 billion because of the publication of his photograph which he deemed to be defamatory.  The newspaper is also facing a contempt of court case following the publication of another image of the Defence Secretary, which Rajapaksa considered to be in violation of an agreement with The Sunday Leader.

The leading opposition newspaper has come under constant attack from the Sri Lankan government.  Besides the numerous legal cases facing the newspaper, the paper’s offices and its presses have been the target of arson attacks and its founder and former editor in chief Lasantha Wickrematunge was murdered in January 2009.  His brother Lal Wickrematunge is the Chairman of  Leader Publications and Managing Director of the Sunday Leader, and has been personally cited in the contempt of court case, alongside Frederica Jansz, managing editor of the newspaper since March 2009.

Lal Wickrematunge told IPI of the details of the cases against him and his newspaper in a blog post for IPI’s website, a summary of which follows:

One of the articles over which Rajapaksa is suing the newspaper described the purchase in 2006 of four MIG aircraft from Ukraine, which had been rejected by the then tender evaluation committee headed by the now Commander of the Air Force a few years earlier. In 2006, however, the government bought the same four aircraft for 40 per cent more on the basis that they had been overhauled.

In the article, The Sunday Leader did not specify who had benefited from this purchase; however it carried a picture of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who is also the finance officer of the Defence Ministry. After Lasantha’s murder, the legal case has been prosecuted against The Sunday Leader and Lal Wickrematunge.

In another article, Lasantha drew the attention of the Defence Secretary to the fact that the new National Identity Cards were faulty in that the security features were inadequate. This article also carried a picture of the Defence Secretary, which he felt was defamatory, and so he filed another case against the newspaper, again seeking LKR 1 billion.

Following these events, The Sunday Leader was given a restraining order asking the newspaper to stop defaming the Defence Secretary.

After Lasantha’s murder, the group of lawyers originally defending The Sunday Leader said they did not want to appear for the newspaper anymore. The new lawyers, who appeared in court to defend The Sunday Leader after Lasantha’s death, excused themselves from court on the first date, on which the Defence Secretary was in court, together with the Commander of the Air Force and all high-ranking Army and Military officers. A third group of lawyers, who accepted to defend The Sunday Leader in the contempt of court case on 9 July 2010, were featured the next day in the lead story on the official website of the Ministry of Defence, Public Security, Law & Order as “Traitors in Black Coats” (“Traitors in Black Coats Flocked Together?” was the title of the article on the website.) The website also carried the lawyers’ pictures.

When the International Bar Association and the local Association issued statements condemning the article and requesting that it be removed from the site, the Military’s website continued to carry the story.

The defamation case was adjourned until 8 December.  The contempt of court case will be heard on Friday, 29 October.

Former Sunday Leader editor in chief Lasantha Wickrematunge was declared an IPI World Press Freedom Hero in February 2010.  Lal Wickrematunge collected the award during the IPI World Congress in Vienna on behalf of his late brother.

Please note: This statement corrects the previous IPI statement on this issue dated 20 October 2010, which erroneously identified Lal Wickrematunge as the editor of the Sunday Leader. He is, in fact, the Chairman of Leader Publications, which owns the Sunday Leader, and the Managing Director of the paper. The earlier statement also stated that the trial had started on Tuesday. Tuesday’s hearing was part of a trial which began some time ago.