A decade on since the end of the armed conflict there has been “no accountability for war crimes and other abuses” said Human Rights Watch, in an appeal to Sri Lanka’s next president on Monday.

“Sri Lanka’s presidential election is certain to have important implications for human rights in the country, including justice for wartime violations,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Whoever is elected president will be under domestic and international scrutiny to ensure that Sri Lanka meets its human rights obligations.”

<p>The Commonwealth is deploying a team to monitor the presidential election in Sri Lanka.&nbsp;</p> <p>The Commonwealth Observer Group will judge whether the election has been conducted in line with Sri Lanka’s election-related legislation as well as relevant regional, Commonwealth and international commitments.</p> <p>The ten member team will assess all factors affecting the credibility of the electoral process by considering the the pre-electoral environment, the voting process, counting and tabulation procedures, and the result announcement.</p>

Sri Lanka’s white van squads abducted, tortured and murdered victims before feeding their bodies to crocodiles, admitted a man who was supposedly a driver for the squads under the previous government. 

In a dramatic press conference in Colombo on Sunday, Anthony Fernando was introduced by Sri Lanka’s health minister as white van driver who had personally witnessed kidnappings and torture.

Commemorating 13 years since the murder of Tamil parliamentarian Nadaraja Raviraj, remembrance events were held in Jaffna and Vavuniya on Sunday.

Tamil families of the disappeared demonstrated in Mullaitivu on Sunday as former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was in town for a rally in support of his brother Gotabaya’s presidential bid.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian M A Sumanthiran defended his party’s decision to back Sri Lankan presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa in next week’s election, as criticism over the decision continues.

Premadasa has “built a reputation for working hard and delivering results, claimed Sumanthiran, adding that, “Our people look to him to live up to his promises to continue the constitutional reform process and deliver on a political solution that will meet the aspirations of Sri Lankans across the country”.

At least three Sri Lankan police officers have interdicted after it was revealed they failed to take a statement from a disabled woman who was raped, reportedly by a Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) supporter following a rally.

The woman, who has Down’s Syndrome, had reportedly attended an SLPP rally with her mother, before she was assaulted on her way home.

At least 850 members of the Sinhalese diaspora have flown to Sri Lanka in order to vote for Gotabaya Rajapaksa in next week’s presidential election, reports the Sunday Times.

With the election less than a week away, leading candidates are busy campaigning for votes with the election set to be a close run between Rajapaksa and Sajith Premadasa.

Rajapaksa, who moved to the United States in 1998, reportedly has a large group of supporters amongst the diaspora in Los Angeles. His Sri Lankan rivals have accused Rajapaksa of still holding US citizenship.

Sri Lanka’s current president Maithripala Sirisena pardoned the killer of a Swedish teenager this weekend, in a move that has symbolised the climate of impunity on the island.

Jude Jayamaha was sentenced to death over the 2005 murder of Yvonne Jonsson, who was reportedly on holiday in Sri Lanka when she was beaten to death at a high-rise apartment in Colombo.

Sirisena had announced last month he was considering pardoning Jayamaha, saying he had behaved well in prison and called the murder an "incident of impatience".

The Tamil political leadership should join the “extra-parliamentary” agitations across the North-East in order to achieve the political goals of  power-sharing, accountability and demilitarisation, argued journalist J S Tissainayagam in an article for the Asian Correspondent last month.