Judges presiding over the court-martial of Sri Lanka's former army chief indefinitely postponed a hearing into one of two allegations against him Wednesday, a defence attorney said.
Sarath Fonseka, who led Sri Lanka to victory in its decades-long civil war but then fell out of favour after unsuccessfully challenging President Mahinda Rajapaksa's re-election bid, is already facing charges he dabbled in opposition politics before retiring from the military last year.
Reporters are barred from the court-martial, which started Tuesday, but defence attorney Nuwan Bopage said the panel of three army officers on the bench postponed Wednesday's hearing and will ask Rajapaksa whether a new panel should be asked to hear the second charge.
The officers did not give a reason for their decision, he said.
The army said in a statement that the court-martial would reconvene for the sake of transparency and maintaining "an unprejudiced nature."