COLOMBO, Jan 23: Assailants beat a Sri Lankan newspaper editor and smashed his car as he drove to work on Friday, colleagues said, in the latest of a string of violent attacks against journalists.

Upali Tennakoon, chief editor of the privately-owned Rivira weekly, and his wife were attacked by four men on two motorcycles who blocked his car at Imbulgoda outside Colombo, a reporter on his paper said.

“They smashed the windscreen and then started attacking us,” his wife Dhammika said as they were brought to the Colombo national hospital.

“I hugged him tight as they started hitting us with sticks and stabbed,” she said, adding the attackers escaped. The hospital said the pair were out of danger.

Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake condemned the attack and said the authorities were investigating.

“The government strongly condemns this attack on the Rivira editor,” the prime minister said.

The attack came two weeks after another editor, Lasantha Wickrematunga, was shot dead.Mr Wickrematunga had been a staunch critic of the government’s war against Tamil rebels.—AFP