Gota says Fonseka a traitor

7 June 2010 05:17 pm

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in an interview with the BBC, termed former Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka a liar and a traitor for attempting to testify against the army on allegations of war crimes.

In the BBC Hard Talk segment Rajapaksa also questioned if fighting terrorism was a crime and insisted he had not committed any war crime nor has the Sri Lankan army. He said the claims allegedly made by General Fonseka to the media regarding war crimes committed by the military was politically motivated.

“He is a liar. For betraying a country, lying, betraying soldiers…isn’t that a crime? Isn’t that treason,” Rajapaksa asked the BBC interviewer. Rajapaksa also ruled out any possibility of an independent, third-party investigation of alleged war crimes committed by both the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE in the final phase of the war.

"We are an independent country, we have the ability to investigate all these things," he said. (Daily Mirror online)