Colombo (AFP)

No memorial marks the spot where the editor Lasantha Wickrematunge fell in 2009, murdered, one of dozens of victims attributed to "death squads" allegedly linked to one of the favorites of the presidential election Saturday in Sri Lanka.

But his former colleague Dilrukshi Handunnetti does not need a memorial plaque to relive the trauma of that morning, when two motorcycle assailants broke the windows of the editor's car and stabbed him to death near the offices. from his diary.

"We were working on this morning of January 8, 2009, when suddenly someone came running and said that something had happened and that Lasantha had been attacked." We all rushed, "remembers -she.

"All I remember, and it's a terrifying memory, is the blood-splattered vehicle with the seats bathed in its own blood," she told AFP, pointing to the scene of the crime. outside a primary school in the capital Colombo.

According to the organization Reporters Without Borders, at least 14 journalists were murdered in Sri Lanka under the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005-2015), whose brother Gotabaya is one of the favorites of the presidential election on Saturday.

During this period, which also saw the Sri Lankan army triumph over the Tamil separatist rebellion at the cost of a huge bloodbath, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the highest official in the Ministry of Defense and was in charge of the security forces. .

He is also accused of leading a special military unit that kidnapped and killed dozens of people - activists, political opponents, Tamils ​​and journalists.

Gotabaya, 70, whose main opponent in the ballot is Sajith Premadasa - the son of a president assassinated in 1993 by the guerrillas - denies any connection with these "death squads", as does his brother.

- "I'm going to cut you off" -

Of all the victims of this era, the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge is for the most chilling local journalists and has become emblematic of the pressure on the media during Rajapaksa's decade of power.

His death occurred while he was to testify in court in a defamation suit brought by Gotabaya. In an article, his newspaper The Sunday Leader reported alleged rebates perceived by the interested party when buying second-hand fighter jets to Ukraine.

Wickrematunge "was so important," says Dilrukshi Handunnetti. "Many people saw him as the real opposition force in a country where dissenting voices were not really allowed."

Under the Rajapaksa, nearly 80 journalists fled abroad for fear of their safety. Among them, Sunanda Deshapriya, who lives in Switzerland today.

"We were called traitors," he told AFP. "I did not go home for three or four months, I slept in different places."

"Even today when I come back, I take precautions when I travel at night," he adds. "Many of us, journalists living abroad, continue to receive hate messages, saying things like" I'm going to cut you into pieces. "

Nearly five years after the removal of Mahinda Rajapaksa's power, most murders committed during his stay in office remain unresolved. The hopes are slim that anyone will ever be accountable, especially if Gotabaya wins.

In case of return to the Rajapaksa clan's responsibilities, the journalists hope that, with the civil war over, the murders and disappearances will not begin again. But they expect their work to become much more difficult.

"Things had already improved after 2010 and I do not think there will be murders again," says Sunanda Deshapriya, the exiled journalist in Switzerland. "But freedom of speech will be removed."

On Thursday in southern Sri Lanka, gunmen stabbed and wounded an author who has just published a critical book by Gotabaya Rajapaksa. They also pointed a gun on his wife's head.

For Sunanda Deshapriya, it's "a bad omen".

© 2019 AFP