Leaked Sri Lankan government report finds ‘no effective domestic mechanism for international crimes’
A Sri Lankan government commissioned report said "there can be no effective domestic mechanism for the purpose investigating international crimes,” according to a leak document obtained by Channel 4 News.
Sections of the “Missing Person's Commission”, also known as the Parangama Commission, led by retired Sri Lankan High Court Judge Maxwell Paranagama, said that unless Sri Lankan domestic law incorporated international crimes, a domestic accountability mechanism would not be effective. "Military Courts of Inquiry, in these circumstances, may appear to lack the impartiality and independence to inspire confidence," said the report.
The report also concludes that video evidence of extra-judicial killings committed by Sri Lankan troops is "unlikely to be faked".
Speaking on the evidence of the killing of Balachandran Prabhakaran the report said “clearly if this allegation is proved, this a clear breach of the laws of war". "In the Commission's view, the Channel 4 programmes provide enough material to form a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes may have been committed, warranting an investigation," said the report, adding it was "mindful of the fact that forensic pathology and other corroborative expert evidence support the video footage as genuine."
Sections of the report go on to quote the former Chief of Staff of the Sri Lankan Army, Major General Udaya Perera, as saying, "more than the Government of Sri Lanka, it is we, the army who should take responsibility, if that cowardly killing happened at the hands of our men".
The commission presented its report to parliament last week, with a debate scheduled on Thursday. The chair of the commission, Justice Maxwell Paranagama, had rejected the UN Panel of Experts' estimated death toll of 40,000 Tamil civilians at the end of the armed conflict in 2009 and spoken out against criticism by UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al Hussain.
See our earlier posts:
Nobody can do a better job than us - Paranagama response to Zeid criticism (01 Oct 2015)
Chair of Sri Lanka's missing persons commission rejects 40,000 death toll (21 Sep 2015)
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