Sri Lankan minister Jeyaraj Fernandopull

Sri Lankan minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle's Parliament colleagues pay their last respects beside his coffin at his funeral in Colombo on April 6, 2008. A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber killed Sri Lanka's highways minister as he opened a marathon in an attack that left 11 others dead and nearly 100 wounded, police and officials said. One of the most tightly-guarded politicians and senior minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, 55, was killed in the town of Weliveriya outside of the capital when the blast ripped through the large gathering at the event, when he had been opening elaborate celebrations marking the traditional New Year shared by both the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils on the troubled island. The LTTE have been fighting for autonomy for ethnic minority Tamils in the Sinhalese-majority island's north and east since 1972, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people. AFP PHOTO/Sanka VIDANAGAMA (Photo credit should read SANKA VIDANAGAMA/AFP via Getty Images)