(Hong Kong, September 4, 2009)
The Asian Human Rights Commission has reliably learnt that the alleged extract of the Udalagama Commission of Inquiry Report published in the Lakbima newspaper and subsequently reproduced in the website of the Ministry of Defence on 7/26/2009 is not, in fact, an extract from the report but rather an extract from the submissions of the counsel appearing for the accused army officers and police officers in the two cases of the extra judicial executions of five Tamil students in Trincomalee in January 2006 and the extra judicial executions of seventeen aid workers in Mutur in August 2006.
The Udalagama Commission of Inquiry had only completed investigations into seven of the cases mentioned in its warrant but was unable to continue investigations as its mandate was not renewed earlier in June of this year. The Government has not yet made the Commission report public after it was presented to President Mahinda Rajapakse, despite repeated calls both domestically and internationally.
