Senior official from Channel 4 ordered to leave country
A senior official from Channel 4 has been expelled from Sri Lanka, the BBC reports.
Stuart Cosgrove and his wife Shirani Sabaratnam went on a "blacklist", after Channel 4 News said the country's armed forces may have committed war crimes.
Mr Cosgrove's wife was refused a visa and turned back from the airport.
In London more than 500 Tamil protesters jeered the Sri Lankan president, as he arrived at a Jubilee lunch for commonwealth leaders.
The protesters outside Malborough House on Pall Mall accuse the country's president Mahinda Rajapakse of war crimes.
The Sri Lankan government said Mr Cosgrove - Channel 4's head of diversity - was forced to leave the country shortly after he arrived.
The official in charge of immigration told the BBC's Charles Haviland Mr Cosgrove's expulsion "was not a deportation", but he had simply been "instructed to leave".
He said Mr Cosgrove and his wife, who is of Sri Lankan Tamil origin, were on a watchlist of people not wanted in Sri Lanka.
When asked why they had been blacklisted, the immigration official said: "Because they are from Channel 4, which without reason has harmed Sri Lanka's reputation."
Courtesy - BBC.com