European Parliament issues resolution on Sri Lanka.
The High Court sentences journalist Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam to 20 years rigorous imprisonment for publishing articles that caused "racial hatred" and promoted terrorism, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
European nations call unsuccessfully for an independent investigation of alleged war crimes by both sides and unhindered access for aid workers to the more than 300,000 displaced. Instead, the Human Rights Council passed, by 29 votes to 12 (with six abstentions), the resolution that Sri Lanka itself submitted entitled “Assistance to Sri Lanka in the promotion and protection of human rights”.
The Sri Lankan military reports the death of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, his intelligence chief ‘Pottu Amman’, and ‘Soosai’, the head of the Tiger’ naval wing.
Courtesy of the Sahajeevana Centre
The Government of Sri Lanka announces a complete victory against the LTTE. Its military forces recaptured all remaining LTTE controlled territories in the Northern Province, including notably Killinochchi (2 January), the Elephant Pass (9 January) and the ultimately the entire district of Mullaitivu (18 May).
The editor of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge, is fatally shot in Colombo on his way to work by unidentified gunmen on motorcycles. Wickrematunge was rushed to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery, but later succumbed to his injuries.
Courtesy of the Sahajeevana Centre
The Sri Lankan government proscribes the LTTE as a terrorist organisation on the basis that it has been holding civilians to be used as human shields.
Gunmen armed with grenades attack the offices of MTV, part of the Maharajah Broadcasting Corporation, the largest private television broadcaster in Sri Lanka.
Government forces capture the Tamil Tigers' de facto capital of Kilinochchi.
Leader of the breakaway 'Karuna faction', Vinayagamoorthi Muralidaran, alias 'Colonel Karuna' has been “nominated” as a Member of Parliament from the quota of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
A suicide bomb blast in Anuradhapura kills at least 27 people, including Major General Janaka Perera, a former military commander in the 1990s.
The remaining United Nations (UN) staff leave the Wanni following a government statement that it could not guarantee the safety of aid workers because of increased fighting.
The European Court of Human Rights gives its judgement in the case of NA v. United Kingdom: the expulsion of the applicant to Colombo would constitute a violation of Article 3, the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment, of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the Court's view, both the assessment of the risk to Tamils of certain profiles and the assessment of whether individual acts of harassment cumulatively amounted to a serious violation of human rights could only be done on an individual basis.
A bomb explosion on a passenger bus in Moratuwa, near Colombo kills at least 21 people and wounds 47 others.
Keith Noyahr, Associate Editor and Defence Correspondent of The Nation weekly newspaper is abducted from his home and returned seriously injured.
