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AUSTRALIAN PATHOLOGIST REFUTES GENEVA BASED ICJ THAT SRI LANKA HAS TAMPERED WITH THE EVIDENCE OF MUTTUR KILLINGS OF AID WORKERSBy Walter JayawardhanaAn Australian pathologist has denied the report by the Geneva based
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) that Sri Lankan authorities
may have tampered with the evidence connected with the killings of 17
aid workers connected with a French NGO. The Sri Lankan aid workers were killed at the height of the fighting
between the Sri Lanka security forces in August 2006 in Muttur in the
Eastern Province of Sri Lanka when the Tamil Tigers invaded the Muslim
majority smaller port town adjacent to Trincomalee. The International Commission of Jurists making sensational headlines
all over the world said it had serious concerns that a bullet
may have been removed from evidence submitted by investigators to a
Sri Lankan court and used the Australian pathologist report to substantiate
the charge against Sri Lanka. Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, at a news briefing held today (03 August 2007), informed that in a supplementary report titled Independent Forensic Investigation of the Muttur Massacre, Dr. Malcolm Dodd, Consultant Senior Forensic Pathologist from Australia, has upheld the Sri Lankan Government Analysts opinion in the investigations into the ACF killings in August 2006. Earlier Dr. Dodd had expressed the view that one of the projectiles recovered from one of the victims was of a 5.56 calibre, and not of 7.62 calibre as were the rest, as concluded by the Sri Lankan Government Analyst. Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Palitha Kohona pointed out that the
comments contained in the initial Dodd Report had been used by several
international groups to discredit the Government of Sri Lanka and to
tarnish the image of Sri Lanka. Particular reference was made to the
June 2006 Birnbaum Report (International Commission of Jurists
Addendum to report: Sri Lanka The Investigations and Inquest
into the killing of seventeen aid workers in Muttur in August 2006). But on August 3, at the press conference Sri Lanka's foreign ministry
issued a statement quoting Dodd contradicting the ICJ's evidence-tampering
allegation. Quoting the Australian pathologist the Sri Lanka government said as
he was saying , "There is no suggestion in my mind of substitution
of exhibits. To this end, I would categorically refute the suggestion
in that (ICJ) report." The controversy regarding the Muttur killings arose because the Norwegian
peace monitors who were being widely alleged to be supportive of the
LTTE blamed the deaths on Sri Lankan security forces collaborated by
the LTTE while the Government of Sri Lanka blamed the Tamil Tigers for
the massacre. In the supplementary report from Dr. Dodd communicated through the
Australian High Commission in Colombo, and received by the Sri Lankan
Ministry of Foreign Affairs August 3, Dr. Dodd has stated that the presence
of a 5.56 calibre projectile can be confidently excluded.
Dr. Dodd further states that he hopes this supplementary report
now settles convincingly the issue of calibre of projectile removed,
and that all projectiles retrieved from the bodies examined were
of the same calibre (7.62). Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe further said, that it is now upto those who had used the Dodd Report subjectively to cast aspersions on the integrity on the Government of Sri Lanka and its investigative processes, to retract their statements and in future not to leap to unduly hasty conclusions, when not in possession of the full facts. |
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