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No matter what they called him - "The Prince of Media Freedom" or "The Man Who Changed Sri Lankan Journalism" or "An Angel of Liberty" - we don't want to be him. No matter how powerful and brilliant his articles, we still don't want to be him. And that is unlikely to change despite all the praise he is receiving from around the world after his brutal death earlier this month.

"No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last."

He wrote that just before he was gunned down in cold blood in broad daylight. For those who knew him, however, the attack had never been a matter of "how", but only of "when". As journalists in most other parts of the world struggle to "survive" the digital wave, the man and his peers were busy dodging real bullets and kidnappers, or bracing for arsonists and bombers, never mind death threats - which any Sri Lankan reporter can get for giving a movie a bad review.

Lasantha Wickrematunge was an exceptional journalist, known for his constant and relentless exposure of government corruption and contentious stand against state suppression of the Tamil Tigers, whom he also condemned as being "among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to have infested the planet". Despite being the editor-in-chief of the English-language Sunday Leader and one of the best-connected journalists in the country, he was always a sitting duck as far as personal safety was concerned.

Critics portrayed him as a highly influential man with an ambitious agenda of being a political king-maker behind the scenes. Whatever they said, however, could not blur the fact that his written words were his only weapon, whereas his enemies set fire to his printing house, sprayed his home with anti-tank bullets, sent him countless death threats and shadowed him with gunmen.

Living a life so targeted and dangerously exposed in a country where at least 14 journalists and media workers have been killed over the past two years and another 20 have fled overseas after death threats, Lasantha was always asked why he did it.

"I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognising the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice. But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience."

The extraordinary obituary he prepared for himself carried what was generally seen as a bombshell accusation in the event that he was killed. It would definitely be the work of the Sri Lankan state, supervised by a president he still regarded as a friend, the message claimed.

On January 9, aware that he was being followed by suspicious-looking men on motorbikes, Lasantha reportedly tried to call President Rajapaska from his car but could not get through. The phone was still in his hand when the gunmen left his body with point-blank gunshot wounds.

Three days before that, an envelope was delivered to his office. It contained half a page of his newspaper with a message in red paint daubed across a critical story on a major Army victory over the Tigers. "If you continue to write this, you'll be killed," the message said. A female editor who was there would never forget his reaction.

"Throw it in the bin. Who cares?"