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SL Military rejects

06 Feb 2014 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Sri Lankan military today rejected the latest Australian report which claimed that the Sri Lankan armed forces had systematically destroyed evidence of alleged mass killings during the last stages of the war in the country.

Military spokesman Ruwan Wanigasooriya told Reuters news agency that the report was baseless. He also cast doubts about the accuracy of the document's eyewitness accounts, and claims that the military removed evidence of war crimes such as mass graves.

"Do you think we could have unearthed skeletal remains which are in the villages where people are also resettled now and destroy the evidence?" Wanigasooriya told Reuters.

The report by Australia's Public Interest Advocacy Centre Ltd, a non-profit policy group, detailed witness accounts of potential war crimes such as deliberate artillery attacks on hospitals, rape, torture, sexual violence and the murder of Tamil Tiger fighters who had surrendered.

"Although violations were committed by both sides, the evidentiary material indicates that members of the Sri Lankan Security Forces (SFs) perpetrated the vast majority of alleged crimes during the investigation period," the report said.

The new report comes as the United States plans to table a U.N. human rights resolution in March against Sri Lanka, putting new pressure on Colombo to address war crimes allegations.

The "Island of Impunity" report, under the Public Interest Advocacy Centre's International Crimes Evidence Project (ICEP), cited witness accounts that torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearance continue in part today, perpetrated by the SFs on the civilian population.

It said Sri Lankan command and control structures were so well-established that, if the charges were proven in a court, it could lead to the conviction of senior military commanders and Sri Lankan government officials.

Sri Lanka has previously said that it rejects an international inquiry into the war.

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