Sri Lanka Releases Tamil Prisoners Who Tried To Assassinate Ex President

Three Tamil rebels imprisoned for trying to assassinate Sri Lanka's first woman head of state were pardoned and released on Monday, according to the president's office.

Three Tamil rebels jailed for attempting to assassinate Sri Lanka's first female head of state have been pardoned and released on Monday, according to the president's office.

The three were serving a 30-year prison sentence for organizing a deadly suicide bombing in the run-up to the 1999 presidential race, which was during the island's decades-long ethnic war.

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Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga survived the attack at her last rally in the capital, but lost her right eye.

Twenty-six people, including journalists, were killed in the blast.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe's office said Kumaratunga had agreed to pardon those who may have been the killers, who were sentenced to 22 years in prison.

"They were released after obtaining her consent," a statement from Wickremesinghe's office said on Monday.

Wickremesinghe was Kumaratunga's main competitor in the 1999 race, which she won after appearing on television with her eyes in bandages.

Kumaratunga is also the daughter of Sirima Bandaranaike, the world's first female Prime Minister,

who won the elections in July 1960 nearly a year after the assassination of her husband, Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike. He was shot dead by a Buddhist monk.

The president's office said five other former Tamil Tigers would soon be released from long sentences under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

controversial legislation,

Internationally criticized, it allows suspects to be held for long periods without judicial review and convictions based on forced confessions.

After the end of the civil war that claimed more than 100,000 lives between 1972 and 2009, successive governments continued to use the Prevention of Terrorism Act to detain political opponents.

BY
ProBuzzFeed