Sri Lanka bombers face death

The attack outraged Sri Lankans and the international community

Two men have been sentenced to death in Sri Lanka for the 1998 bombing of the nation's holiest Buddhist shrine which killed 23 people .

Minority Tamils, Muthysamy Dharmalingam and Krishnasamy Ramachandra, were sentenced at the High Court in the central town Kandy.

A third man was jailed in absentia for 20 years while a fourth was acquitted.

The men had been accused of using a truck bomb to blow up Kandy's famous Temple of the Tooth in January 1998.

No one has been executed in Sri Lanka since 1976 and death sentences are normally commuted to life imprisonment.

Outlawed

The attack was one of the bloodiest and most high profile of the two-decade civil war between the Tamil Tiger rebels and the government.

Scores of people were injured in the attack, which badly damaged the World Heritage site, said to contain one of the teeth of Gautama Buddha.

The attack on the centre of Buddhist culture outraged Sri Lankans as well the international community.

A few days afterwards the government outlawed the Tamil Tigers.

The government and Tamil Tigers have been observing a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire since February last year.

However, talks have been stalled since April, with the Tamil Tigers accusing the government of not fulfilling promises to the Tamil heartlands in the north and east.