Sri Lankan President appoints committee to speed up cases against detained LTTE suspects

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appointed a four-member committee to study the cases of detained LTTE suspects and recommend suitable action to expedite the cases against them.

The committee has been appointed following a recommendation made by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LRRC) in its interim report.

The committee is headed by Deputy Solicitor General Shavindra Fernando and includes Senior State Counsels P. Kumararatnam, Chethiya Goonesekera and Dinal Ratnayake.

The Committee members are reportedly planning on visiting the Boosa detention camp in southern Sri Lanka on Wednesday (19).

At the end of the war in May 2009, the government detained over 11,800 LTTE rebels suspected of committing acts against humanity and sent them to rehabilitation camps.

Following rehabilitation 5,586 LTTE cadres out of the 11,696 detained after the war have been integrated into the normal civilian life after giving them various types of vocational training and in some cases school education during their detention in rehabilitation centers.

The hardcore LTTE cadres who have committed serious crimes will be charged in the Courts, the government says.

The Colombo Additional Magistrate in December ordered to remand 160 hardcore cadres who were in the custody of Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) following their arrest from camps.