By Walter Jayawardhana

Information and Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said in Colombo the attempt by the Channel 4 news in London depicting the Sri Lankan Army as executing bound prisoners has been concocted to bring into disrepute one of the most disciplined and professional armies in the world as part of a conspiracy.

He said, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-At first the conspirators belonging to a Sri Lankan and international network attempted to stop the forward march of the Sri Lankan Army . Then the same conspirators wanted to save Prabhakaran, the terrorist leader. Having failed all those attempts now they want to insult the army by showing a concocted video.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

Speaking at the governmentƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s weekly cabinet briefing Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said the Sri Lanka Army is a highly respected, disciplined and a professional army thoroughly educated in human rights. Under no circumstances they would kill hand bound prisoners in execution style as depicted by Channel 4.

He further said, “As the Sri Lanka Army maintains such high qualities, foreign countries have been asking Sri Lanka to train their own Army in accordance with the way the Sri Lanka Army is trained,” the Minister said. “Many parties continuously tried to safeguard the LTTE by stopping the humanitarian action of the Army against the LTTE. When they failed to do so they have come on the other way round that our Army is brutal,”

Channel 4 news of LondonƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s ITN has been repeatedly publishing items extremely partial to the LTTE quoting dubious unnamed sources. None of their reports have been substantiated. Later some media sources said they have been written from hand outs written by politicians rather than independent reporters.

The Channel 4 news said the videos taken with the help of a phone camera was made in January but failed to explain the delay in publishing them. There had been no restrictions on dispatches of foreign reports from Sri Lanka