Ex-General Freed Sri Lanka

COLOMBO: - Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has ordered the release of former warlords as well as his political rival, Sarath Fonseka. The four-star generals can swing from jail today if all the formalities have been completed.

The letter, signed by the President, last Friday, will be sent to the Ministry of Justice today," said a spokesman for President, Bandula Jayasekara yesterday. Fonseka's wife, Anima, welcomes the release of her husband. »I hope the President will release him unconditionally," said Anima outside the hospital where Fonseka was being treated for respiratory illnesses since the last two weeks.

Fonseka was arrested two weeks after failing to challenge Rajapakse in elections in January 2010. The military court later sentenced him to 30 months in prison for running for politics, although still a member of the military.

On November 2011, he again was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of defaming the Defense Ministry as well as your president, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Fonseka said some members of the Tamil rebels who had surrendered, was murdered on the orders Gothabaya. For this case, men's 61-year appeal.

Intervention of the United States suspected of being behind the forgiveness Fonseka. On Friday, Foreign Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris of Sri Lanka met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington. In addition to discussing the issue of human rights and war crimes in Sri Lanka Tamil, Clinton allegedly urged the immediate release of Gamini Fonseka.

Although free, Fonseka will face charges of war crimes for the deaths of 40 thousand Tamil civilians in the last months of civil war in 2009. He was ordained as a hero by the people of Sri Lanka after successfully destroy the Tamil Tiger insurgency in May 2009.