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S.Lanka's Tamil Rebel Suicide Bomber Discloses Assassination Plans
A separatist Tamil Tiger rebel suicide bomber who was arrested by Sri Lankan police on Monday in a safe-house at Dehiwela, suburb of capital Colombo, has disclosed assassination plans targeting President Chandrika Kumaratunga.
Police who are investigating the assassination attempt said on Wednesday that in targeting President Kumaratunga the suspect of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels and a woman suicide bomber were deployed to assassinate her at a presidential election rally at the town hall in Colombo in December 1999. If the woman suicide bomber had failed he was to blow himself up.
When the woman blew herself up he had escaped from the venue prior to the police cordoning the area.
President Kumaratunga narrowly escaped the assassination attempt by LTTE suicide bombers but lost her right eye.
The suspect, one of five including a woman who had been arrested, revealed that the suicide jackets used by suicide bombers who assassinated former Industrial Development Minister C. V. Gunaratne and MP Neelan Tiruchelvam had been assembled at this safe-house. It was also a haven for the rebels who came to Colombo to carry out various missions of sabotage and murders.
The main suspect who was arrested had swallowed two capsules of cyanide in an effort to commit suicide but he had not died as he had not bitten the capsules.
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