Former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa's lawyer will send a letter of demand to former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, for publicly slandering him, leader of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) Udaya Gammanpila said yesterday (15).
Addressing a media briefing in Colombo, Gammanpila also claimed that the current government has contracted 'Gotabayaphobia', because various steps have been taken against the former Defence Secretary.
"Also, they have kept nine officials of the Army in custody for nearly a month, over the disappearance of journalist Pradeep Eknaligoda, to get a statement against Gotabaya Rajapaksa, but still the government has been unsuccessful," Gammanpila added. Gammanpila also stated, former senior DIG Anura Senanayake was not granted bail until he accused Gotabaya Rajapaksa of being responsible for ruggerite Wasim Thajudeen's death.
United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa who was arrested by the FCID this morning, was remanded by the Fort Additional Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne until August 22.
MP Rajapaksa was summoned before the Financial Crimes Investigation Department (FCID) of the Police this morning, to record a statement.
He was arrested by the FCID at the conclusion of his statement. The older son of the former President is being investigated on allegations of financial fraud, relating to shares worth Rs. 125 million, purchased from Hellocorp.
Retired Supreme Court Judge Sarath De Abrew died from injuries sustained in a fall from the upper floor of a building.
He was rushed to the Kalubowila Hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival, hospital sources said.The Kalubowila Coroner is expected to inspect the place from which he had his fall.
The former Supreme Court Judge was facing charges for committing grave sexual abuse on a domestic aide, on or around June 16 last year, in Ratmalana.
The Attorney General had filed an indictment against him in the Colombo High Court.
The case was fixed for trial at the Colombo High Court, in May.
Meanwhile, Mount Lavinia Magistrate had referred the magisterial inquiry against the former Supreme Court Judge for allegedly causing voluntarily hurt to a domestic aide in 2015, to the Mediation Board last month.
RIO DE JANEIRO — As befit the king of sprinting and the biggest global star at the Rio Olympics, Usain Bolt of Jamaica held up his index finger, signaling that he was No. 1, during introductions Sunday night as the smitten crowd chanted his name.
Then he proved it again, winning the 100 meters in 9.81 seconds, securing his place as the greatest sprinter of all time and becoming the only man or woman to win the 100 three times and at consecutive Olympics.
His main rival, Justin Gatlin of the United States, the 2004 Olympic champion who later served a suspension for doping and was booed on Sunday, took the silver medal in 9.89 seconds. Andre de Grasse of Canada won the bronze in 9.91.
As Bolt ran down Gatlin in the final meters, he pounded his chest. He then blew kisses to the crowd and carried a toy Olympic mascot around the track, giving it away as a souvenir. Finally, he struck his signature pose, known as To Di World, cocking an elbow and pointing his fingers toward the sky, as if launching an arrow or a lightning bolt.
He is also favored to win a third straight gold medal at 200 meters and yet another as the most vital member of Jamaica’s 4x100-meter relay team.
Even an athlete as great as Bolt, though, can be upstaged on rare occasions. That happened Sunday when Wayde Van Niekerk of South Africa set a world record in winning the 400 meters in 43.03 seconds, shattering Michael Johnson’s 17-year old record of 43.18.
Running on the outside in lane 8, where he could not see his competitors, Niekerk astonishingly shaved more than four-tenths of a second from his previous career best of 43.48 and more than a second from his season’s fastest race before the Olympic final.
Fairly or unfairly, given the tainted state of track and field due to doping, that performance may bring as much skepticism as celebration.
For Bolt, Sunday’s victory carried both a sense of celebration and farewell. He will turn 30 next Sunday as the Rio Olympics end. He has said repeatedly that these will be his final Games.
He plans to retire next year after the world track and field championships in London, with one transcendent career goal remaining: to take his world record of 19.19 seconds at 200 meters below the 19-second barrier.
“This has got to be the most universal event other than the long jump,” David Wallechinsky, the president of the International Society of Olympic Historians, said of Bolt’s victory in the 100 on Sunday. “Everyone’s tried it at least once in their lives. To be the best in the Olympics three times in something that everyone has done at least once is incredible.” When Bolt crossed the line Sunday, it was not with the same astonishment as that night eight years ago at the Beijing Games, when he was new to the public and the 100 and he finished in 9.69 seconds, easing up and celebrating before the tape but still breaking his own world record. How fast he could have run that night, we will never know.
Nor did Sunday’s performance match the wonder of the 9.58 that Bolt ran a year later to set the current 100 record at the 2009 world track and field championships in Berlin. As with his victory at the 2012 London Games in 9.63 seconds, winning for Bolt is now more about career achievement and historical standing and dominance at the biggest moments than mere startling speed.
He stacks wins as if they were poker chips. Since he became an otherworldly figure with his performances in 2008, Bolt has won 69 of 74 races. His only truly important defeat came with his elimination on a false start in the 100 at the 2011 world track and field championships in Daegu, South Korea.
Bolt has raced little this season, and in recent years, he has become vulnerable to nagging injuries in his back that radiate down the muscles of his legs.
He withdrew on July 1, from the final of the 100 at the Jamaican Olympic trials with a slight tear in his left hamstring muscle. But Jamaica’s rules, unlike those of the United States, which require a top-three finish to qualify for the Summer Games, allowed Bolt to be entered in the Rio Games anyway.
Some American sprinters joked at the time that Bolt always seemed to sustain some injury before the Olympics or world championships. Sure, he would be ready for Rio.
“It’s a tradition,” Tyson Gay said.
But sprinting is a lot like boxing in the sense that they are individual and elemental sports, one man against another with his legs or his fists. Sleights, real or perceived, become dramatically exaggerated.
Bolt said he was disappointed by the tame, joking remarks of Gatlin and other Americans, adding: “I think they have not learned over the years that the more you talk, the more I will want to beat you. It’s one of those things but I’m looking forward to it, should be exciting and they will feel my full wrath as always.”
In the end, the buildup to Sunday’s final turned out to be more playful than antagonistic. Bolt held a news conference featuring samba dancers and a Norwegian journalist who broke into a worshipful rap song, saying he hoped that the Jamaican star would again prevail.
In Sunday’s final, Bolt reacted relatively slowly to the starting gun, as he often does, slower than every competitor but one. He is 6-feet-5 inches, and it can take his body some time to unfurl, like a flag. He also may have grown somewhat cautious after that false start at the 2011 world championships. Once, one false start was permitted. Now, an early lean or even a reaction to the gun in under a tenth of a second, brings automatic disqualification.
But Bolt wins races not in the first 50 meters, but in the second 50 meters. He is so tall, his legs so long, that he takes only 40 or 41 strides over 100 meters, where other sprinters might need 43 or 44 or even 46.
He also holds his top-end speed better than others. No sprinters speed up at the end of a 100-meter race as it appears they do. This is an optical illusion. The winner is not the person shifting into another gear but the one slowing down the slowest.
At the 2015 world track and field championships in Beijing, Gatlin had Bolt beat but leaned too early, wobbled with a kind of swimming motion, and Bolt caught him at the line, winning by a hundredth of a second.
Again on Sunday, Gatlin got a quicker start, but Bolt chased him down.
“His legacy depends on what he does with the rest of his life,” said Wallechinsky, the Olympic historian, said of Bolt. “The best is if he goes around, giving clinics, and travels the world like Muhammad Ali and becomes well known in Africa and Asia and is someone that everybody loves. Or he could just have a good time for the rest of his life.”
Railway Security officers on Saturday morning took into custody four persons who pelted stones at a Mount Lavinia bound train from Maradana between Kollupitiya and Bambalapitiya and handed over to the Kollupitya police.
Investigations have revealed that the suspects had pelted stones at the train while fishing.They were between the ages of 20-30 and residents of Bambalapitiya.
Last week an Asst Education Director travelling in a Vavuniya bound train intercity train from Colombo was hit by a stone thrown by a mischief maker and he succumbed to the injuries at the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital.
Police have failed to yet failed to apprehend the suspects.
The railway sources said around 200 security personnel had been deployed to protect commuters.
KANDY – A T-shirt with a picture of LTTE Prabhakaran and ‘Eelam’ map printed on it has been recovered from among imported textiles by a trader of the new market complex of Kandy on Saturday (13) night. The trader has handed over the T-shirt to Kandy police.
The T-shirt was among used clothes imported from Singapore. The T-shirt is now in the custody of the Kandy police.
(AFP) Elaine Thompson stormed to victory in the women's 100m to usher in a new era for Jamaican sprinting as the eight-year Olympic reign of compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce came to an end.
Thompson, 24, got off to a flying start and quickly surged to the front to cross in 10.71sec, punching the air before embracing training partner Fraser-Pryce.
Tori Bowie of the United States took silver with 10.83sec while Fraser-Pryce claimed bronze in 10.86.
After Saturday's race, Thompson revealed she could never have dreamed of upstaging Fraser-Pryce when the Jamaican star landed her first Olympic 100m title in 2008.
"I look up to her so much but I never thought I'd be sitting here today," said Thompson.
"When I crossed the line and glanced across to see I was clear (I) didn't quite know how to celebrate," she added.
"There is a big screen back home in my community in Jamaica. I can't imagine what is happening there right now."
Fraser-Pryce, 29, had been hoping for a hat-trick of 100m titles after gold medals in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.
But it was Thompson who confirmed herself as the standard-bearer of Jamaican women's sprinting with an imperious display.
"What I'm most happy about is that, the 100m title is staying in Jamaica," said Fraser-Pryce, who raced with her hair dyed in Jamaica's national colours.
"I'm on the podium with my training partner. I'm proud of Jamaica - just look at my hair," she added, paying tribute to Thompson.
"I am really happy for her. I've seen her work hard and it was her time. In 2008 it was my time, 2016 it is her time."
Fraser-Pryce revealed she had also been struggling with an injury. She finished her semi-final grimacing as she crossed the line.
"It was really difficult. I cried, because it was unbearable. I knew I had one more race to go and I just prayed to God," she said.
It has been a challenging season for Fraser-Pryce, who has struggled to shake off a toe injury which has troubled her throughout the year.
"By far, I would definitely say that this is my best championship ever, because I knew how hard I worked, I knew the pain and the sacrifices and the tears.
"I knew everything and despite everything I stuck to it. I kept my head in the game. I am really happy that I persevered."
Exploding out of the blocks, Thompson quickly edged clear of the field and the powerfully built runner never looked like relinquishing her grip on the contest.
Marie-Josee Ta Lou of Ivory Coast finished fourth while flying Dutchwoman Dafne Schippers, a strong favourite for the 200m, was fifth in 10.90sec.
Michelle-Lee Ahye of Trinidad and Tobago and English Gardner of the United States also dipped under 11 seconds with times of 10.92sec and 10.94 respectively.
It was the first time in track and field history that seven women have gone under 11 seconds in a single race.
Fraser-Pryce meanwhile refused to be drawn on her future beyond Rio.
"I'll be 33 in 2020 for Tokyo. Let's wait and see," she said.
