The youngest brother of Sri Lanka president Maithripala Sirisena had died only two days after being attacked with an ax. According to the authorities who investigated the incident, it was a personal dispute that quickly escalated into a more physical altercation.
Priyantha Sirisena, 42 years old, was airlifted from the scene of the crime, which was in his hometown, Plonnaruwa, and brought to a private hospital in Colombo. Although the attacker had already surrendered to the authorities, no details have been provided regarding the “private dispute,” said Colombo Gazette. To date, it remains unclear what the fight was about.
Priyantha had suffered severe injuries to his head. Despite aggressive life-saving efforts and surgery, his doctors were not able to save him, according to BBC News.
Priyantha was a businessman in the sand mining industry and had also owned his own rice milling company. He was the youngest in a family of 12 children, and had fathered three children of his own.
Sri Lanka president Sirisena was in China for a four-day political visit when the attack happened. He is scheduled to return to his country on Sunday night and will be attending his brother’s funeral on Monday.
Unlike the president whom he replaced, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sirisena had opted to keep his family members off politics and had not even given them state protection. According to the report, he had also scaled down his own protection unit. Rajapaksa, on the other hand, gave every member of his family top positions in the Sri Lankan Government, according to Yahoo! News.