COLOMBO, Oct 29: Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister escaped assassination on Monday after his guards intercepted a suicide bomber who blew himself up and killed three other people in Colombo, officials said.

Plain-clothed police deployed to protect Ratnasiri Wickremanayake were about to search the suicide bomber when he detonated explosives strapped to his body, a police official said.

Wickremanayake, who is also acting for President Chandrika Kumaratunga who is in London to support the international campaign against terrorism, was on his way to attending a ceremony at a nearby venue when the blast went off.

Police had cornered the bomber at Colombo’s Chitra Lane and he set off the device to avoid being captured alive, officials said. At least 18 people were wounded in the blast and eight vehicles were destroyed.

“He (the bomber) was roaming the area and aroused the suspicion of plain-clothed men deployed as security for the PM,” a police official said.

“As we got reinforcements and tried to question him, he detonated the explosives.”

Doctors at Colombo’s main hospital said eight of the wounded were in a critical condition.

Prime Minister’s spokesman, Seelaratne Senarath, said the premier was unnerved by the blast but went ahead with the official ceremony a short distance away from where the blast occurred.—AFP