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Wednesday, Jun 17, 2009
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International

Rights probes left unfinished

B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: A Commission of Enquiry appointed by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2007 to investigate 16 cases of alleged violations of human rights shut shop on Sunday without completing its mandate.

It was reported by the Daily Mirror, an English newspaper, on Monday even as the President returned from a two-day visit to Myanmar.

The Enquiry Commission appointed two years ago lasted one year and five months. The eight-member commission headed by the former Supreme Court Judge, Nissanka Udalagama, was set up amid mounting pressure from within and outside to investigate 16 major cases of human rights violations in 2006. There was no immediate response to the news from the government.

“We completed investigations into seven cases and reports on five were finalised while the rest remain un-investigated,” Justice Udalagama told Daily Mirror. “We were unable to investigate the disappearance of Rev. Fr. Jim Brown as his body was not found and the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar as it was still pending in Court,” he said.

Investigations were completed on the killing of five youth in Trincomalee on January 2; the abduction and killing of 14 villagers while they were travelling from Mutur to Kantale in August; the killing of 51 people in Sencholai also in August; the killing of 10 Muslim villagers at Radella on September 17; the killing of 68 passengers in Kebitigollawa on June 15, the killing of 98 Navy personnel at Digampathaha and the killing of 17 aid workers of the French NGO ‘Action Against Hunger’ in early August.

Justice Udalagama said the inquiry into the killing of Lakshaman Kadirgamar; the killing of parliamentarians Joseph Pararajasingham and Nadarajah Raviraj; the killing of Peace Secretariat deputy director K.P. Loganathan; the killing of five fishermen at Pesalai; the killing of 13 in Kayts; killing of 13 at Welikanda and the recovery of five headless bodies could not be completed.

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