Five senior police officers including a Deputy Inspector General are sent on compulsory leave after the report of a presidential commission established to investigate allegations of torture and extrajudicial executions at a government-run detention center at the Batalanda Housing Estate near Colombo implicated them in the torture and “disappearances” of a large number of youths in the late 1980s.
Archive for April, 2008
In the first criminal prosecution of its type, the Colombo High Court sentenced to death six soldiers and a reserve policeman found guilty of the September 1996 murders of Jaffna schoolgirl Krishanthy Kumarasamy and her mother, teenage brother and neighbour.
President Kumaratunge appoints a special presidential committee to deal with complaints of harassment of Tamil civilians.
Army Brigadier Larry Wijeratne is killed by a suicide bomber.
Operation Jayasikuru is in to its twelfth month and has resulted in over 70,000 newly displaced persons, adding to the 300,000 IDPs who were already in the Vanni. The military confirmed the death toll of some 1,100 soldiers plus over 3,000 wounded.
Tamil politicians protest over the roundup of more than 1,200 Tamils from Colombo.
Tamil politicians and human rights organisations protest against the security forces’ continued use of homeguards and armed ex-militant Tamil groups to aid in security operations, as 'spotters' to identify suspected LTTE members, and to detain and interrogate suspects. They have been accused of murder, abduction, extortion, assault, illegal detention, torture, and forced conscription.
Sri Lanka accedes to the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The protocol allows individual complaints about violations to be taken to the U.N.'s Human Rights Committee.
The UN's Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, undertakes a twelve-day visit to Sri Lanka.
UNP parliamentarian Mohammed Mashroof is assassinated along with his driver and 4 year old son.
Tamil parliamentarian A. Thangathurai is assassinated in Trincomalee along with five others during a school event.
Thousands are displaced when the military forces launch a massive operation in the northern Vanni region for control of a key highway that would give it land access to the former LTTE stronghold of Jaffna. The operation is codenamed Jayasikuru or 'Victory Assured'.
Britain’s Liam Fox facilitates an agreement between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe, the main purpose of which is to refrain from undermining the efforts for peace by the government in office.
People's Alliance (PA) Member of Parliament (MP) Nalanda Ellawalla is assassinated. Members of the United National Party are accused of carrying out the killing.
