This story is published in collaboration with the Free Media Movement of Sri Lanka, part of a series for Black January, which commemorates crimes against Sri Lanka's journalists. It has been translated and edited from Sinhala, with updates on Keith Noyahr’s case.
The Sri Lankan journalist Keith Noyahr vanished from the country’s media landscape while still very much alive. On 22 May 2008, Noyahr was abducted and brutally tortured by individuals who could not tolerate his fearless and incisive reporting. That night marked the end of his career in journalism.
Seventeen years later, in May 2025, the Attorney General’s Department of Sri Lanka announced its intention to file indictments in the case – an overdue but significant development. Yet despite progress in the investigation, the path to justice remains uncertain, with the case repeatedly stalled and key suspects released over the years.
Noyahr’s abduction and brutal assault is a well-documented incident of violence against the media in Sri Lanka. At the time of his abduction, Noyahr was the associate editor of The Nation, a newspaper owned by the now-defunct Rivira Media Corporation. He was also a defence columnist, writing a weekly column called “Military Matters” under the pseudonym “Senpathi”, which dealt with the security situation in Sri Lanka as the country grappled with civil war.