Dying for Journalism: Lasantha Wickrematunge of Sri Lanka
[ Time ]
Lasantha Wickrematunge, one of Sri Lanka’s leading journalists, a freelance reporter for TIME and an outspoken critic of the Sri Lankan government, was shot this morning as he drove to work in Colombo, his country’s capital. He later died of his injuries. The attack, by two gunmen on motorcycles in the middle of morning rush hour traffic, was brazen even by the standards of Sri Lanka. The country has suffered through more than 25 years of war between the government and a Tamil separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which pioneered the use of suicide bombers.