Sri Lankan intelligence officer gunned down in Colombo

RUWAN WEERAKOON Associated Press Writer COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) _ Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels fatally shot a senior military intelligence officer in the Sri Lankan capital, the Defense Ministry and police said Sunday.

Lt. Col. Rizwi Meedin, 39, who commanded the army's intelligence unit in Colombo, was shot late Saturday night as he drove home, said Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Nalin Witharanage.

``The officer had gone out in the night for some work and his wife got a call around midnight with the caller telling her that her husband has been shot,'' Witharanage said. ``We found him in the driver's seat of his car with bullet wounds on his head and neck.''

He was declared dead at a hospital.

Witharanage said Meedin, who had previously been involved in investigating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, had received death threats from the rebels.

Police Senior Deputy Inspector General Sirisena Herath said he believed the killers were Tamil Tiger fighters.

``All indications are that this was the work of the LTTE,'' Herath said.

He said police had arrested four suspects and were combing the city. He did not disclose the identities of the arrested men.

A pro-rebel Web site, TamilNet, reported the incident, calling the assailants ``unknown gunmen.''

The government also blamed the Tamil Tigers for the May 31 slaying of another commanding officer of the intelligence unit, Maj. Nizam Mutaliph, in Colombo.

More than 40 intelligence operatives, including civilian informers, have been killed since the government and the LTTE signed a cease-fire in 2002 halting 19 years of civil war that left nearly 65,000 people dead.

Tamil Tiger guerrillas began fighting in 1983 for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.2 million ethnic Tamils, claiming discrimination by the country's Sinhalese majority.