News in Brief

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 January 1999, 19:50 GMT]
One SLA soldier killed in Ampakamam in the Vanni; over ten thousand detained for smuggling heroin; civilian wounded in Jaffna shooting.

One army casualty - VoT

One Sri Lankan Army (SLA) soldier was killed when the Liberation Tigers launched an attack on the SLA at Ambakaamam, in the Vanni region, yesterday January 4, the VoT said in its night news transmission.

The radio said the body of the soldier was recovered by the LTTE along with arms and ammunitions.

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Heroin smuggling problem in Sri Lanka

The Police and the narcotics bureau said that 10,170 persons were taken into custody last year in connection with heroin smuggling.

The figures are based on raids conducted islandwide. In addition, in the first few days of this year, 57 KGs of heroine had been seized.

Superintendent of Police, Ranjith Weerasuriya, said that among the suspects are several foreigners.

One Afgan national, who was carrying a consignment of cocaine, was taken into custody at the Bandaranayake International Airport and handed over to the Police and narcotics bureau along with for further investigations.

He is to be produced in the courts tomorrow.

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Armed men shoot Jaffna civilian

A civilian, Patrick Nixon, 28, from Irupalai, Jaffna, was seriously wounded when unidentified armed men shot at him at around 2.00 p.m yesterday. He has been admitted to the Jaffna hospital.

One of his relatives, Anthony Sursh, who was with him when the incident took place said that they were cycling from Urumparai, through the Rasa road, when they were stopped by a group of armed men who wanted Nixon to come with them.

"We began to run when they started firing in the air, and they latter fired at Nixon" he said.

Nixon, a father of three children, ran a liquor shop at the Irupalai junction. He closed the shop down following orders from the EPDP.

Later he opened another liquor shop.