DPA
Colombo
Two former Tamil rebels who planned a suicide bomb attack to assassinate a former president of Sri Lanka were yesterday jailed for a total of 590 years after they pleaded guilty, court officials said.
Their sentences will run concurrently, meaning they will only need to spend 30 years each in jail, Colombo High Court judge Padmini Ranawaka decided.
Former president Chandrika Kumaratunga lost an eye in the blast during an election campaign meeting the capital
Colombo in December 1999.
Twenty-nine others including a woman suicide bomber were killed and 80 people were injured.
One of the suspects, V Varadharaja, was sentenced to 290 years while the other suspect C I Ragupathy
was sentenced to 300 years.
They were identified as rebels of the former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who were defeated in 2009 at the end of a 26-year civil war. The former president, the daughter of two former prime ministers, continued as president until 2005 and remains
active in politics.
