Sri Lanka police arrest four suspects with explosives

April 9, 2008 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s police arrested four people and seized a large quantity of explosives that could have been used in a suicide bombing, officials said Wednesday.
Investigators found about 50 kilogrammes (110 pounds) of plastic explosives and grenades in a location in central Kandy district on Tuesday, a police official said.

“There is an indication that the explosives were probably meant to be used in a suicide attack,” an official involved in the case said.

The arrests follow Sunday’s assassination of highways minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle by a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber, a blast that also killed 13 other people.

The rebels have been fighting for autonomy for ethnic minority Tamils in the Sinhalese-majority island’s north and east since 1972, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.