Born to a family of Lawyers, his father was a Member of the State Council of Ceylon. Athulathmudali was educated at the prestigious Royal College, Colombo. He then went on to read Jurisprudence at Jesus College, University of Oxford from 1955, President of the Oxford Union in 1958 and won the Lord Sanky Prize. He was the first Sri Lankan to be elected as the President of the Oxford Union. Thereafter he became a Barrister at Grays Inn, and went on to gain a Law Degree from the Harvard University on scholarship.
After which he went teach law as a lecturer at the University of Singapore, the Hebrew University in Israel, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Allahabad finally as a lecturer in Jurisprudence in the Ceylon Law College. In 1985 he was appointed a President's Counsel.
Political career
Lalith Athulathmudali was elected to Parliament in 1977 and went on to become the Deputy Minister of Defence and Minister of National Security under President J.R. Jayewardene during the 1980s. During this time, he organized several offensives against territories held by theLTTE including Vadamarachchi Operation. He was seriously injured in an 1987 grenade attack in the Sri Lankan Parliament inside the Parliament complex in 1987. Upon Jayewardene's retirement in 1988, Athulathmudali tried to obtain the UNP's nomination for thepresidential election, but was defeated by Ranasinghe Premadasa who went on to win the presidency.
Premadasa demoted Athulathmudali to Minister of Agriculture, then Minister of Education. He also tried to have Athulathmudali removed from his UNP party positions. Athulathmudali became disenchanted with Premadasa's leadership.
Athulathmudali and several UNP MPs brought forth a motion to impeach Premadasa. When that failed, he was expelled from the UNP, and began forming a new party, the Democratic United National Front. He announced his candidacy for the presidency, but was assassinated by a gunman on April 23, 1993 after an election rally . Initially, the government blamed the LTTE and produced the body of a Tamil youth named Ragunathan was found near the scene of the shooting the following day. He had apparently died from taking a cyanide capsule. However, these claims were later proved to be false.
A Presidential Commission carried out by the Sri Lankan Government concluded that Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa was directly responsible for the assassination. It also concluded that the Tamil youth Ragunathan, was murdered by the same people who killed Athulathmudali, by forcibly administering him with cyanide.
Legacy
Athulathmudali is considered as one of the few distinguished Sri Lankan statesmen of his time. He is still remembered by many in Sri Lanka as a gentlemen and as one of the few well educated politicians of that era. In his honor a staue and memorial has been erected in Colombo. His contribution to the education of the country is eminence, the Mahapola Fund he established has greatly contributed to the development of higher education and provides scholarships for needy students annually. The Lalith Athulathmudali Auditorium at the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology and the Lalith Athulathmudali Memorial Prize which is one of the prestigious prizes awarded annually at Royal College, Colombo (his alma mater) are named in his honor.
A great man !!!
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