Barmy Asian Tribune Editor calls Colombo newspaper unscrupulous and unethical

(November,14, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is bizarre! The ‘Asian Tribune’ editor, Kanapathipillai Thabirajah Rajasingam who is running the web newspaper from somewhere in hiding in Sweden has accused the highly valued and read ‘Sunday Newspaper’ is unethical and unscrupulous. K T Rajasingam’s article is published following threat of legal action by Sunday Leader’s feature writer Sonali Samarasinghe that she had instructed her solicitors to file action against K T Rajasingam for defaming her in the Asian Tribune.

Within hours of Asian Tribune publishing the second news, there are numerous reader comments being published. Compared with reader comments for other articles in the past, this is unprecedented in numbers and replies are all well written and praising the Asian Tribune for taking a stand against the Sunday Leader. Asian Tribune has a restricted reader comments forum. Only those who subscribe to the Asian Tribune can make comments.

Mindful that it is a week day, the Asian Tribune news filed at GM 6.22 on 14 November 2007 had received 21 reader comments by 13.30GM (within six hours). A record breaking hit rate indeed! All the comments reflect hatred towards the Sunday Leader, its editor and the feature columnist. Not a single comment is favourable to Sunday Leader or critical of Asian Tribune. Having read the past reader comments that are mainly substandard English, it is surprising how such quality English had found its way into the comments section written by previously unknown names.

The exposure in the ‘Sunday Leader’ about K T Rajasingam’s underhand work must have caused serious irritation for him and these are being reflected in the news and comments published against the Sunday Leader suspected to be written by K T Rajasingam himself or possibly with the help of his paid agents.