Colombo, August 24: A plot to assassinate powerful Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who had played a major role in the defeat of the LTTE, was unearthed today with the arrest of one person and seizure of a suicide jacket and arms from him, police said.
“We have arrested one person and found a five-kg suicide jacket kit, cynide capsules and an automatic gun,” police spokesman Nimal Mediwake told PTI.
He said it was a plan to assassinate Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the brother of President Mahinda Rajapksa and a key architect of the anti-LTTE military offensive in May that led to the virtual annihilation of the rebel outfit.
Gotabhaya had survived an assassination attempt by an LTTE suicide bomber in December 2006.
“The arrest was made from a house in Mutwal in Colombo,” Mediwake said.
The police also recovered ammunition, magazines and a grenade, besides 13 cyanide capsules.
Meanwhile, the Vavuniya police conducted a search operation on a tip-off and recovered four LTTE suicide kits weighing about 2-4 kg each on Saturday, the government’s Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) said.
The kits were concealed under a concrete cover in a cemetery in Nelunkulam area of Vavuniya, it said.
—PTI