5 held over attack on Sri Lanka ambassador in Malaysia

The Malaysian police on Monday arrested five persons, after a group of protesters assaulted the Sri Lankan ambassador at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Malaysian authorities said the attack on High Commissioner (ambassador) Ibrahim Sahib Ansar on Sunday left him with minor injuries, but they have so far given no details on the identities or background of the attackers.

“Five persons have been arrested and we are investigating the motive for the attack,” said Abdul Samah Mat, police chief of Selangor state.

In Colombo Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary Esala Weerakoon summoned Malaysia’s top envoy, Wan Zaidi Wan Abdullah, and demanded adequate security for Colombo’s diplomatic mission. The foreign ministry expressed “disappointment that the Malaysian authorities had failed to provide necessary protection” despite warnings of a possible threat.

Almost 100 ethnic Indian protesters had gathered in Kuala Lumpur last week to rally against former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse, who was attending an international conference, local media reported. Rajapakse ordered the bloody military assault, which ended Sri Lanka’s war with Tamil separatist guerrillas in 2009. International rights groups have said up to 40,000 civilians may have been killed in the final offensive, a charge denied by Colombo.

Sympathisers of the Tamil victims in the almost three-decade-long civil war burnt an effigy of Rajapakse during the protests in Malaysia.