Documents surfaced recently revealed that the UK’s intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, have trained intelligence officials from multiple countries, including Sri Lanka, as recently as last year.

Officials from Sri Lanka, Saudia Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, among others, all attended an International Intelligence Directors Course in 2019. The Ministry of Defence has described this course as one that “provides significant opportunity for intelligence diplomacy at the highest levels.”

This is not the first time that the UK has aided in training Sri Lankan intelligence and military forces. Last year, a team of Sri Lankan army special forces travelled to the UK where they took part in various military exercises with British troops. This happened just a week before many British parliamentarians spoke out about Tamil genocide and called for accountability for massacres committed by Sri Lankan troops.

Similarly, it was reported that Britain’s Royal Air Force conducted training sessions with Sri Lankan troops in Trincomalee last year, and the British High Commission in Colombo announced a joint disaster relief exercise last year.

Many of the other countries that participated in this training are also under scrutiny for human rights violations, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt.

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