COLOMBO:Leaders of Sri Lanka’s influential Buddhist clergy today backed opposition demands for the immediate release of former army chief and defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka.

Top monks of all key sects as well as the guardians of the island’s holiest shrine, the Temple of The Tooth, made a joint appeal to President Mahinda Rajapaksa to free Fonseka, who was taken into military custody last week.

“Under no circumstances

can we endorse the arrest of... a war hero who delivered the country from the clutches of terrorists,” the monks said in a letter to Rajapaksa, a copy of which was seen by AFP.

As the battlefield architect of the victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels last May, Fonseka was feted for finally crushing their 37-year campaign for an independent Tamil homeland.

The state-run SLBC radio station reacted by warning the monks against dabbling in politics and becoming an opposition mouthpiece.

Opposition parties praised the “unprecedented” stance taken by the clergy and said they would organise more protests to press for Fonseka’s release.

The leftist JVP, or People’s Liberation Front, said the former army chief’s arrest was politically motivated and had no basis in law. “We know the arrest is to do with General Fonseka being a presidential candidate and nothing else,” JVP general secretary Tilvin Silva said. “We will

respond both legally and politically to secure his release.” After falling out with Rajapaksa, Fonseka quit the army in November and ran against the president in elections on January 26. Rajapaksa won comfortably, and two weeks later Fonseka was taken in by the military.

A spokesman for the monks said they would meet on Thursday to decide on further action if Rajapaksa failed to respond to their demands.

The president has denied any link between the arrest and the presidential polls, and stressed that “no one was above the law”.