COLOMBO: Sri Lanka on Thursday announced plans to  compensate journalists and media organisations that suffered violence  and intimidation during former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse’s decade-long  rule. President Maithripala Sirisena said he has appointed a panel to  review unsolved crimes committed against journalists during Rajapakse’s  time in power, with the aim of compensating them or their families. “All  journalists and media organisations that became victims of repression  will be compensated,” Sirisena said in a statement. The president urged  victims to lodge claims by mid-June to a senior civil servant who has  been appointed as head of the panel. Over a dozen reporters and other  media employees were killed between 2005 and 2015, when Rajapakse lost a  presidential election to Sirisena. Radio and television stations were  bombed in and around Colombo while a Tamil newspaper office in the  northern Jaffna peninsula was frequently targeted by pro-government  militia. A prominent anti-establishment editor, Lasantha Wickrematunga,  was gunned down as he drove to work in January 2009 and his killing  remains unsolved.