Activist teams accuse former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa of tampering with police data to hamper investigations into mass killings.
Former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been accused of tampering with police data to hamper investigations into mass graves found in an space the place he was a army officer on the top of a bloody Marxist insurrection in 1989.
In a report launched on Thursday, activist teams together with the Worldwide Fact and Justice Mission, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka and Households of the Disappeared stated despite the fact that lots of of stays have been unearthed in about 20 exhumations of mass graves up to now three many years, no motion has been taken to determine the victims and return their stays to their households.
Tens of 1000’s of stays may nonetheless be buried in undiscovered mass graves, the report stated.
Not one of the quite a few commissions of inquiry established by successive Sri Lankan governments was mandated to look into mass graves. As an alternative, efforts to uncover the reality have been stymied, the report stated.
When mass graves have been found and investigations started, judges and forensic consultants have been transferred abruptly, households’ attorneys have been denied entry to websites, no effort was made to seek out dwelling witnesses, no autopsy knowledge have been collected and, within the very uncommon instances wherein somebody was convicted, they have been later pardoned, it stated.
“It’s a story of an absence of political will – an insufficient authorized framework, an absence of a coherent coverage and of inadequate assets. For the households of the disappeared it’s a story of unresolved tragedy; the bereaved are compelled to dwell and die with out ever discovering their family members,” it stated.
Rajapaksa’s alleged position within the exhumations of mass graves was an instance of political interference, it added.
The report stated Rajapaksa, then a strong defence official, ordered the destruction of all police data older than 5 years at police stations within the area after mass graves have been found within the Matale district of central Sri Lanka in 2013.
The mass graves have been suspected to this point from the time of a violent Marxist insurrection in 1989 when Rajapaksa, as a army officer, was concerned in operations in opposition to the rebels within the area.
The report referred to as for motion in opposition to Rajapaksa and senior police officers concerned within the alleged hampering of the investigations.
Rajapaksa was elected president in 2019 however was compelled to resign final 12 months amid offended public protests over the nation’s worst financial disaster in historical past.
Sri Lanka has confronted three main armed conflicts, together with a 25-year separatist civil conflict, since gaining independence from the British 75 years in the past.
An workplace created in 2017 to hint particulars of these reported lacking within the conflicts obtained 21,374 complaints, together with from members of the family of safety forces.
The report really useful enactment of particular legal guidelines and insurance policies to handle mass graves and exhumations, together with their identification, preservation and investigation.
It additionally really useful strengthening forensic capability within the nation, the creation of an impartial public prosecution service to make sure that prosecutions ensuing from exhumations are carried out in an neutral method and the institution of a talented unit to look into different potential mass graves.
