Monday, February 21 2005 14:32 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Colombo: Three people were killed and at least 30 injured in a blast at a courthouse in southern Sri Lanka today (Feb 21, 2005), police said, as former US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton toured the region.

Police said that they suspected that a remand prisoner might have lobbed a grenade inside the courthouse as the magistrate began hearing cases listed for the day.

"We suspect this to be the work of a man held in prison custody at the court premises," the region's top police officer, Kingsley Ekanayake, said.

He said that a prison guard and a man and a woman were killed. At least 30 people were admitted to hospital, a spokesman for the Embilitiya hospital said.

Police said that more than a dozen prisoners had escaped in the confusion following the bombing.

However, the magistrate and lawyers were not injured.

The military said that they were rushing a team of experts to the area to help in the investigation while the Criminal Investigation Department launched a separate probe.

The town is about 75 km from where Bush and Clinton were inspecting damage caused to Sri Lanka's coastal regions by December's tsunami. The waves killed among 31,000 people in Sri Lanka.

Clinton and Bush left the Island and headed for the Maldives after inspecting US-funded tsunami relief operations, police said.

Police and troops had arranged unprecedented security in the southern region for the visit, with most of the main roads through the district of Matara closed to traffic.