Premadasa’s 18th deathanniversary today

The 18th death anniversary of President Ranasinghe Premadasa falls today (May Day). The LTTE assassinated the President near Armour Street police station on May Day 1983 as he was leading a column of UNPers for the May Day rally.

The police later identified the ‘human bomb’ as ‘Babu’, who infiltrated Premadasa’s inner circle and waited for instructions from the Vanni.

However, some expressed doubts over the LTTE’s involvement in the assassination. Bradman Weerakoon, International Affairs Advisor to Premadasa, in a book he wrote some years after the assassination cast doubts on the notion that it was the LTTE which murdered the President

In "Rendering Unto Caesar" (Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 2004) Weerakoon says that there are questions in regard to the assassination which have remained unanswered, giving room for other possibilities.

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