The Sri Lankan army said it is continuing to investigate the video clips broadcast by Channel 4 relating to war crimes against Tamils during the final stages of the armed conflict on government instructions, in a statement released on Friday.
The statement, which was published on the on the government's official news channel, News.lk, comes days after the Sri Lankan government said it would launch its own domestic inquiry, and only weeks before the UN report on mass atrocities committed in Sri Lanka is due to be released.
The statement, found here, is published in full below:
In a response, Channel 4's Head of News and Current Affairs, Dorothy Byrne, said at the time,
“Corrupted Journalism is a scurrilous piece of work which misleads the public. That is why we decided to publish this full and detailed response, answering every allegation in careful and meticulous detail. In contrast to the authors and funders of this spurious nonsense who have chosen to remain anonymous, Channel 4 stands proudly behind the outstanding journalism in No Fire Zone.”
See more here.
The statement, which was published on the on the government's official news channel, News.lk, comes days after the Sri Lankan government said it would launch its own domestic inquiry, and only weeks before the UN report on mass atrocities committed in Sri Lanka is due to be released.
The statement, found here, is published in full below:
"Sri Lanka Army since the year 2013 has been investigating into the Channel-4 video contents upon directions given by then government."The Sri Lankan army and the then Rajapaksa led government had previously accused Channel 4 of fabricating the video clips and last year, the government published a booklet entitled 'Corrupted Journalism".
"The objective of those investigations is to verify whether those were Army members."
In a response, Channel 4's Head of News and Current Affairs, Dorothy Byrne, said at the time,
“Corrupted Journalism is a scurrilous piece of work which misleads the public. That is why we decided to publish this full and detailed response, answering every allegation in careful and meticulous detail. In contrast to the authors and funders of this spurious nonsense who have chosen to remain anonymous, Channel 4 stands proudly behind the outstanding journalism in No Fire Zone.”
See more here.