\n No memorial marks where Sri Lankan newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge was murdered in 2009, one of dozens of victims of \"death squads\" allegedly linked to a frontrunner in Saturday's presidential election.\n<\/p>\n
\n But ex-colleague Dilrukshi Handunnetti needs no plaque to remember vividly the morning of January 8 when two assailants on motorbikes smashed Wickrematunge's car windows and stabbed him to death near their newspaper's office.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Suddenly someone came running and said that something had happened and Lasantha has been attacked. All of us came rushing,\" Handunnetti recalled.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"All I can remember, and it's a terrifying memory, is his blood-spattered vehicle with seats soaked with his own blood,\" she told AFP, pointing to the spot outside a Colombo primary school.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), at least 14 journalists were murdered during the 2005-15 presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa -- brother of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a candidate in Saturday's vote.\n<\/p>\n
\n During that time, which also saw the Sri Lankan army end -- with highly controversial means -- the country's civil war with Tamil separatists, Gotabaya was defence secretary and effectively ran the security forces.\n<\/p>\n
\n Allegedly reporting to him was a special military unit that abducted and killed dozens of people -- activists, political opponents, Tamils and journalists.\n<\/p>\n
\n Gotabaya, 70, whose main opponent in the election is Sajith Premadasa -- son of assassinated former president Ranasinghe Premadasa -- denies any involvement, as does his brother.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Cold-blooded message' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Of all the victims, for journalists Wickrematunge's murder was the most chilling, and became emblematic of the fate of the media during the Rajapaksas' decade in power.\n<\/p>\n
\n His death came days before he was due to testify in a defamation trial brought by Gotabaya over allegations, printed in his newspaper, of kickbacks in the purchase of second-hand MiG jets from Ukraine.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"He was so important,\" Handunnetti said. \"A lot of people recognised him to be the actual opposition in a country where dissident voices have really not been allowed.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n His killing, she said, was \"cold-blooded message\" by powerful, murky forces in the Indian Ocean island nation at the time that \"dissent is not okay\".\n<\/p>\n
\n During the Rajapaksas' rule, according to rights groups around 80 journalists fled abroad fearing for their safety, among them Sunanda Deshapriya, who now lives in Switzerland.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We were branded as traitors,\" Deshapriya told AFP. \"I didn't go home for three or four months, I slept in different places.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Even now when I come back I take precautions when I travel at night.. A lot of us journalists abroad still get hate messages, saying things like 'I will cut you to pieces'.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n - Accountability -\n<\/p>\n
\n Four years after Mahinda Rajapaksa lost power, most of the killings remain unresolved and hopes are slim that anybody will ever be held to account, particularly if Gotabaya wins.\n<\/p>\n
\n This is mirrored in the stalled efforts to investigate alleged war crimes. Gotabaya has said the country should \"move on\".\n<\/p>\n
\n From her home in Australia, Wickrematunge's daughter Ahimsa Wickrematunge is trying to pursue Gotabaya in courts in the United States.\n<\/p>\n
\n If Gotabaya wins, with the civil war over journalists are hopeful that the murders and disappearances won't return, but they still expect their work to become harder.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Things already improved after 2010 and I don't think there will be murders again,\" Deshapriya said. \"But the environment will be suppressed.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I would like to believe that this time around they would actually want to correct some of the terrible old mistakes and look to a path that is different where at least we can practise our vocation,\" Handunnetti said.\n<\/p>\n
\n But only this week a writer, who has just published a book about corruption under the Rajapaksas, was stabbed in his home and a pistol held to his wife's head.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is a \"bad omen,\" Deshapriya tweeted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No memorial marks where Sri Lankan newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge was murdered in 2009, one of dozens of victims of \"death squads\" allegedly linked to a frontrunner in Saturday's presidential election. But ex-colleague Dilrukshi Handunnetti needs no plaque to remember vividly the morning of January 8 when two assailants on motorbikes smashed Wickrematunge's car windows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-42905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n