Sri Lanka's Court of Appeals has reinstated an appeal filed by the wife of Tamil MP Nadarajah Raviraj, against a verdict passed last month acquitting all of the suspects accused of his murder.
Shashikala Raviraj, the wife of the murdered MP, challenged the Colombo High Court's decision last month, but her initial appeal was dismissed on January 19th. However the appeal will now be taken up for support by the Apellate Court on March 3rd.
On December 23rd a unanimous decision was made by an all Sinhala special jury, to acquit three navy intelligence officials and two members of the Karuna group after a month long trial. The decision by the jury was based on reasoning that the five accused cannot be convicted solely on the fact that witnesses in the case identified them and sparked widespread criticism.
State witnesses gave considerable details on the murder plot – including details of who pulled the trigger and the subsequent escape plan.