From AP via TheStar.com:

Lasantha Wickrematunge, a prominent Sri Lankan journalist and outspoken critic of the government's war on ethnic Tamil rebels, was sure he was marked for death.

Three days after he was gunned down, execution style, Wickrematunge's newspaper published a haunting, self-written obituary Sunday in which he says his writings placed him in peril and adds: "When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.''

In his posthumous column, titled "And Then They Came For Me," Wickrematunge accused the country's rulers of orchestrating violence to suppress dissent.

"Murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges," he wrote.

Even as Sri Lanka savours possibly decisive victories over Tamil Tiger rebels, the government is facing harsh criticism from abroad and at home over attacks on the independent media.

Wickrematunge's death – he was ambushed by gunmen on motorcycles Thursday – came two days after a dozen men with assault rifles invaded a compound to blow up the control room of a television station. Both targets had been accused of lacking patriotism in their coverage of the war and other issues.