Rajapaksa invites foreign experts to disappearances commission, as international pressure escalates

Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapaksa invited three international experts to the country's domestic disappearances commission, reported Reuters, amid increasing international pressure over mass atrocities committed against Tamils in the final stages of the armed conflict.

The three experts include a former UN prosecutor in Sierra Leon war crimes investigations, Sir Desmond de Silva, a member of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Sir Geoffrey Nice, and the chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, David Crane.

The invitation comes as the UN Human Rights Council mandated international inquiry examining the final stages of the armed conflict formally began earlier this week.

"The government is under pressure. That's why it has had to resort to these measures," a government official was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Despite the appointment however, the government's spokesperson, Keheliya Rambukwella appeared keen to emphasis that the government retained the right to accept or reject the experts' findings.

"This is just to advise the commission. We can decide whether to accept the advice or to set it aside," he told a press conference.

"It is to double check what we have found so far and to get some international backing. It is not a re-correction."

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