Form team to probe disappearances - Commission asks President
September 30, 2014 07:42 am
The
Presidential Commission on Disappearances and War Crimes (DWC) has asked
President Mahinda Rajapaksa to establish an Investigating Team to help it
pursue cases of alleged involuntary disappearance in the country.
Talking
to a group of news persons at a sitting of the commission in Mulangavil in
North West Sri Lanka on Sunday, the panel chairman, Justice Maxwell Paranagama,
said that the charge that persons had disappeared after they had surrendered to
the army or after crossing army-held territory, needs to be investigated by a
competent agency.
“I
have put in a request for such a team to
the President, but have not got a response so far,” Paranagama said.
Asked
who might head the proposed the Investigating Team, he said that it would not
be a police or army man but a retired judge so that no one can complain of a
pro-state bias. The team would collect evidence and see if a case is fit for
legal action. Giving an example of case in which investigation had been useful,
he said that a proper probe in that case had revealed that the person who had
allegedly disappeared was living in a refugee camp in Tamil Nadu.
Paranagama
clarified that the recommendations of the commission and the investigating team
are not binding, and it is the President’s prerogative to accept or reject a
recommendation.
The
commission has so far received more than 19,000 complaints of involuntary
disappearance and has interviewed almost 1,300 affected families. It has had
six sittings in the North Eastern Tamil-speaking districts of Batticaloa,
Trincomalee and Mullaitivu. It is now conducting four sittings in Kilinochchi
district.
Paranagama
asserted that his panel is not under any pressure from the government. Despite
propaganda about bias, people are coming to place their grievances before it,
and people are speaking freely, he said, The New Indian Express reports.