News in Brief:

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 February 2000, 16:36 GMT]
SLA sergeant killed in Trincomalee, Search in Vadamarachi east, Youths escape from EPDP office.

SLA sergeant killed

Suspected members of the Liberation Tigers shot and killed a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) sergeant Monday evening, near Palathoppur in the Mutur area, south of Trincomalee.

The SLA Sergeant was travelling in a bus from Trincomalee to Mutur.

Sources said unidentified youths stopped the bus, about 100 metres from the Palathoppur army camp, where soldiers carried out a security check. The youths got into the bus through the front and rear entrances and shot the army sergeant, according to passengers.

The youths later disappeared, they said.

The body of the army sergeant was brought to Kallaru (Seruvila) army camp, SLA sources said.

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Search in Vadamarachi east

Sri Lanka Army soldiers sealed off the villages of Maamunai and Chempiyanpattu in the Vadamaradchi East in the northern province, and conducted a house-to-house search today, sources said.

The operation which began around 6 a.m. this morning went on till 4 p.m. The villagers were interrogated at their houses and no one was allowed leave their house during the operation, the sources said.

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Youths escape from EPDP

Trincomalee Tamil youths who claimed to have escaped from the Kayts office of the Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP) on February 2 were handed over to the Mallakam Magistrates Court in Jaffna district today through the International Committee of the Red Cross, judicial sources said.

Pakkiyanathan Mariyathas (23) and Sinniah Balan (23) told the court that they escaped from the EPDP camp at Kayts when they were refused permission to go home and surrendered to the ICRC.

To a question by the Magistrate, the two youths replied that they wanted the help of the court to go to their hometown Trincomalee.

The Magistrate remanded them till March 3 and instructed his Registrar to contact his counterpart in Trincomalee to make arrangements to send these two youths to their hometown.