2ND LEAD

UPFA to appoint Karuna as national list parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 October 2008, 11:21 GMT]
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, following the advice by his brother and SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has approved a suggestion to appoint Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, alias Karuna, a renegade Tiger commander who turned leader of a paramilitary group operated by the Sri Lanka Army in Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai, as national list parliamentarian of the UPFA, informed sources in Colombo said.

The gazette notification in this connection has already been issued and the swearing in takes place on Tuesday, the sources further said. Muralitharan will be filling the vacancy created by the resignation of a JVP MP (nominated under UPFA-JVP agreement) Wasantha Samarasinghe who resigned to contest the recently concluded provincial elections in the north central province.

Amid reports of a renewed infighting among the factionalised TMVP paramilitary in the East, Karuna met EPDP paramilitary leader and Sri Lankan Minister Douglas Devananda, seeking the latter's support to strengthen his position. Karuna had fled the country with a 'false' passport to Britain and deported back to Sri Lanka after nine months of imprisonment, when Pillayan was promoted as the leader of the paramilitary group and installed as the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province by the Rajapaksa government.