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Emergency declared as Lanka hunts for killers

Tamil rebels deny involvement in Kadirgamar killing

AFP, Colombo
Sri Lanka declared a state of emergency yesterday after the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in an attack denied by Tamil Tiger rebels that could jeopardise the island's peace process.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga appealed for calm after the killing of the 73-year-old minister, a vociferous critic of the Tiger rebels, who were accused by a senior police officer of being behind the attack.
Despite frantic efforts for more than an hour by doctors to save him, Kadirgamar died in hospital after snipers shot him in the head and chest at his home in Colombo late Friday, officials said.
Soldiers started door-to-door searches in the capital Saturday for the assassins, while police set up roadblocks and air force helicopters circled the sky.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have led a three-decade-old campaign for a separate homeland within the Indian Ocean island-nation, were prime suspects in the slaying, military spokesman Daya Ratnayake said.
"We strongly suspect the Tigers because he had threats from the LTTE," Ratnayake said.
Two suspected Tamil rebels were arrested a fortnight ago after allegedly spying on Kadirgamar, he said.
The rebel group, which has been observing a ceasefire since February 2002, denied responsibility for the killing and said the government must look "inwards" to get at the killers.
"Denying any involvement in the assassination ... LTTE's political head, S.P. Thamilselvan Saturday condemned Colombo for hastily blaming the Liberation Tigers for the killing," the pro-rebel Tamilnet website said.
The rebels had branded Kadirgamar, a member of the minority Tamil community, as a traitor to their cause of setting up a homeland for mainly Hindu Tamils within Sri Lanka, which is mainly Buddhist and ethnic Sinhalese.
Analysts feared for the uneasy truce between the government and the rebels, already rocked by higher violence in recent months, and said the high-profile killing could re-ignite the island's three decade-old civil war.
"There should be both local and international pressure on the parties to hold the course, build confidence and maintain the ceasefire," Sunanda Deshapriya, director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, told AFP.
"Otherwise, there's a chance we will go back to war."
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan led international condemnation of what he called a "criminal and senseless" murder.
"It's completely insane, it's a major setback for the peace process," said Erik Solheim, the top Norwegian envoy trying to engineer a lasting peace deal between the government and the LTTE.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it a "senseless murder" and "a vicious act of terror." She said those responsible must be brought to justice.
Neighbouring India also condemned the "terrorist crime," but expressed hope that Sri Lanka would maintain political stability.