Sonali Samarasinghe Wickrematunge is a Sri Lankan lawyer and an investigative reporter and editor. She worked as a columnist for the ''

Sunday Leader ''The Sunday Leader'' was an English-language Sri Lankan weekly newspaper published by Leader Publications (Private) Limited. It was founded in 1994 and is published from Colombo. Its sister newspapers are the ''Iruresa'' (''Irudina'') and the def ...

''. She was the founding editor of the weekly ''

Morning Leader ''The Morning Leader'' was a Sri Lankan English-language newspaper. It is published by Leader Publications (Pvt) Ltd. Its sister publications are The Sunday Leader ''The Sunday Leader'' was an English-language Sri Lankan weekly newspaper publis ...

''. She did her LLB from the University of London and attended

Sri Lanka Law College Sri Lanka Law College (abbreviated as SLLC), formerly known as Ceylon Law College, is a law college, and the only legal institution where one can enrol as an Attorney-at-Law in Sri Lanka. It was established in 1874, under the then Council of Le ...

and she was admitted to the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka as an attorney at law. She was a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University and an international journalist in residence at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism. She was the wife of journalist

Lasantha Wickrematunge Lasantha Manilal Wickrematunge (, ; 5 April 1958 - 8 January 2009) was a high-profile Sri Lankan journalist, politician, Television presenter, broadcaster, and human rights in Sri Lanka, human rights activist who was assassinated in January 2009 ...

who was assassinated in 2009. She had to flee Sri Lanka to the United States after threats to her life after Wickrematunge's assassination. She is the editor of the website Lanka Standard. She was awarded the Global Shining Light Award for Investigative Journalism by the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in 2008 and the

Pen International PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide professional association, association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association ...

awarded her the Oxfam Novib/PEN Award for Freedom of Expression in 2009.

References

{{Reflist Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Sri Lankan lawyers Sri Lankan women journalists