LTTE trained civilian arrested with six signed forms, brought to Colombo
Tuesday, 28th October 2014
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Acting on information received from the public, the police have arrested a person tasked by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to collect signatures on blank ‘UN war crimes complaints forms’ in the Vanni region.
A senior security official said that the suspect had undergone compulsory LTTE combat training for about a month during the war.
Responding to a query, the official alleged that the suspect had been seen in the Mulankavil area, arrested over the weekend and brought to Colombo for further questioning.
The official said that the collection of signatures on blank ‘UN war crimes complaints forms’ was being investigated against the backdrop of Northern Provincial Councillor, Ananthy Sasitharan requesting Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to extend the time allocated to gather war crimes evidence.
At the time of the arrest, the suspect had six signed blank ‘UN war crimes complaints forms.’
The official said that the UN’s refusal to reveal the identities of those who provided information to Darusman panel until 2031 should be examined in the wake of UN using TNA to collect signatures on blank forms.
Ananthy has made her appeal to OHCHR through three senior external experts, namely Martti Ahtisaari, Silvia Cartwright and Asma Jahangir tasked to advise and support the yet unidentified war crimes investigation team.
Sasitharan yesterday told The Island that she was awaiting a response from Geneva. Asked whether she sought Geneva intervention on the instructions of the TNA leadership, Sasitharan insisted that she was acting on her own.
TNA leader, Mavai Senathirajah and TNA MP M. A. Sumanthiran, too, told The Island that they weren’t aware of Sasitharan’s move.
Government sources told The Island that thought the TNA leadership denied knowledge of Sasitharan’s project, the five-party alliance was in the process of helping the OHCHR make a case against the government of Sri Lanka. Sources said that the TNA leadership couldn’t wash its hands of the matter as the person taken into custody at Mulankavil had implicated the leadership. The suspect has revealed that having collected signatures on ‘UN war crimes complaints forms in the recent past he handed them over to a senior TNA organiser based in Vavuniya identified as Sunmaster.
Sources said that the suspect’s son who was with the LTTE intelligence had undergone rehabilitation before being released. The father, however, hadn’t been rehabilitated, sources said.
From : http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=112951
