A list of supposed LTTE cadres who surrendered to the Sri Lankan military has been rejected by a court in Mullaitivu, after the military only submitted names of those who had gone through a government rehabilitation process.
Mullaitivu District Magistrate S M S Samsudeen rejected the list on Thursday, which was submitted after families of missing Tamils filed Habeas Corpus petitions, for their relatives who surrendered to the military in the final stages of the armed conflict in 2009.
During Major General Chanayaka Gunaratna, head of the Army’s 58th Division, admitted during proceedings earlier this year that the army had kept a list of all those that surrendered. Yet the military had twice failed to submit that list.
The Sri Lanka Campaign said last month that the military’s response “ will provide one of the strongest indications yet of whether the new mechanisms for investigating the disappeared will be able to prevail over the deep culture of secrecy within the Sri Lankan security forces, and the impunity it creates”.
See our earlier posts:
Sri Lankan army must release list of surrendees – Sri Lanka Campaign (25 Jun 2016)
Army fails to show up in court over case of surrendering Tamils (22 May 2016)
Army fails to submit list of missing people (22 Apr 2016)
Sri Lankan army has a list of surrendering Tamils – Brigadier (18 Feb 2016)