A former Sri Lankan intelligence officer, who had previously evaded arrest over the abduction and disappearance of 11 youths and the assassination of an MP, has been released on bail this week.

Lieutenant Commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi alias 'Navy Sampath' was in remand custody  over  the abduction of the eleven Tamil youth from 2008 to 2009, who were held in navy bases at Trincomalee and Colombo before being almost certainly murdered. He was also wanted in connection with the 2006 murder of Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj.

<p>Sri Lanka’s cabinet has decided to scrap&nbsp;the&nbsp;Counter Terrorism Bill which was introduced by the previous government, in favour of the replaced Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the<em> </em>Daily Mirror <a href="http://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Govt-withdraws-Counter-Terroris…">reports</a>.</p> <p>Yesterday, the cabinet approved the Foreign Relations Minister, Dinesh Gunawardane’s proposal to withdraw the legislation.</p>

The head of the Sri Lankan army warned that the military must be prepared to face “any internal or external threats” in an address to troops on New Year’s Day.

“We all should determine to attach the highest degree of priority to the enforcement of National Security needs at all times while being prepared to face any internal or external threats upon receipt of proper training and continued exercises,” said Shavendra Silva, who is accused of overseeing a litany of war crimes.

Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa vowed to “protect and nurture the Buddha Sasana” in an address to parliament this morning, where he called for changes to be made to the Sri Lankan constitution in order to safeguard “security, sovereignty, stability and integrity”.

In his speech, Rajapaksa outlined policies for his tenure and repeatedly referred to defending Sri Lanka’s “sovereignty” and "Buddhist values".

Sri Lanka’s Tamils who are “concentrated in the country’s north say the area still suffers from a lack of development, despite promises by its new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa,” Charles Stratford reports for Al Jazeera.

A decade on from the end of the armed conflict, “government promises of investment have all failed to materialise.”

Gotabaya is “deeply distrusted” by Tamils due to his role as the Defence Secretary in 2009, where he oversaw the military offensive that killed tens of thousands of Tamils.

Families of the disappeared protested outside the Jaffna office of the paramilitary organisation EPDP on Thursday, calling for the arrest of its leader, current Sri Lankan cabinet minister Douglas Devananda.

Protesters decried a recent assault on one of their representatives by the paramilitary members and also held placards and chanted slogans highlighting Devananda’s role in abductions and disappearances during and after the armed conflict.

The Sri Lankan military “are trying to destroy evidence and intimidate the witnesses" said the wife of a disappeared journalist, as nine Sri Lankan soldiers face charges over his abduction.

Sandya Eknaligoda has been trying to seek justice for her husband Prageeth’s abduction for the past ten years. He was abducted in 2010 during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency, after he had looked into corruption that took place during the regime. The cartoonist was also investigating the use of chemical weapons by the army in the North-East during the armed conflict.

During the Rajapaksa regime, dozens of journalists and media workers were killed, the vast majority of them Tamil.

Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) has launched an investigation into the use of a local authority owned water tanker to water the streets of Nallur at the end week-long memorial events to Lt Col Thileepan.

The tributes to Thileepan, a political wing leader of the LTTE who fasted unto death in 1987, were carried out at the destroyed and rehabilitated monument erected in his memory in Nallur, near the original site of his hunger strike.

On this day 14 years ago, five Tamil students were summarily executed by Sri Lanka's Special Task Force, whilst they spent an afternoon on the beach in Trincomalee.

To date no one has been held accountable for the murder.

The case – known as the 'Trinco 5' – remains one of the highest profile killings in Sri Lanka to receive international attention, listed in 2014 by the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' report on the island as one of four ‘emblematic cases’ of the government's failure to ensure accountability and having been raised repeatedly in international forums.

<p>An attempted attack on UPFA MP K Kader Masthan has reportedly left the parliamentarian’s bodyguard hospitalised with injuries to his arm.</p> <p>The alleged attack happened on Sunday night when the MP was travelling towards Vavuniya town and his vehicle stopped in Pavatkulam for a member of his team to alight.</p> <p>Masthan’s vehicle was reportedly set upon by a group wielding swords. The MP’s bodyguard sustained a wound to his arm when trying to block the attackers.</p> <p>The attackers reportedly escaped, and the injured bodyguard was admitted to Vavuniya general hospital.</p>