COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - The Supreme Court will hear the first case in Sri Lanka filed against a tobacco company, an independent newspaper reported Monday.

The Daily Mirror said the son of a man identified as Cecil Perera, 60, who had died of lung cancer on April 13, was fighting the case against the Ceylon Tobacco Company. An official who refused to be identified said over the telephone that the company denies liability. Ceylon tobacco holds the monopoly on cigarette sales in Sri Lanka. Perera had started smoking when he was 18 and had one lung removed in 1997, the paper said. He had smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day, it reported. The case is to be heard in July. The World Health Organization has said that cigarettes kill more than 4 million people per year worldwide. The Sri Lankan government has said at least 17,000 of its citizens die annually of smoking-related diseases.

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