State funeral to be held for slain Sri Lankan FM

A funeral with full state honors is to be accorded to Sri Lanka's assassinated foreign minister, a government communique said Saturday.

Lakshman Kadirgamar's last rites will be held in the Independence Square in Colombo on Aug. 15 and the date has been declared a day of national mourning.

Kadirgamar, 73, was killed late Friday night by unknown assassins in the plush residential area of Cinnamon Gardens.

He was shot in the head and chest by sniper fire. The police said that at least seven people had been arrested on suspicion but no major breakthrough had been achieved yet.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga appealed for calm, blaming unnamed forces for the killing.

Kadirgamar spearheaded an international campaign to ban the Tamil Tigers and the bans were slapped on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by the governments of the United States, Britain and India. For this reason the Tamil Tigers started hating Kadirgamar, a fellow Tamil.

Kadirgamar was a prime LTTE target for assassination and the state had provided him with a security cover of over 100 personnel including crack commandos.

Kumaratunga declared a state of emergency immediately after the assassination which allows deployment of the Army in the streets, wide powers to arrest and detain suspects.

The authorities have dismissed an immediate return to the war despite the murder.

Source: Xinhua