Radhika Now Says She Received The Suntheralingam Report And Ordered To Release It

January 7, 2014 

The former Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy now says, she did receive the Special Rapporteur Suntheralingam’s report on high profile human rights violations, and ordered it to be published.

Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy

Last night she states further; “contrary to the suggestions made in the comments, at no time did I seek or receive endorsement from the Sri Lankan government for any of my UN appointments.  Please publish this as your report has done unnecessary damage, since it seems to imply that we were pressurized to suppress the report and that we succumbed to that pressure.”

When asked for her opinion on the non-publication of the report, she said “It is not proper to comment on the actions of the HRC Commissions that came after me.”

Two days ago, Dr. Coomaraswamy told Colombo Telegraph that Dr. Deepika (Udagama) had also confirmed that the report was not finalized when they left the HRC. “Neither she nor I can remember the contents and if it had been finalized we would surely have remembered,” Dr. Coomaraswamy said.

Yesterday the Colombo Telegraph has published the unpublished report commissioned by the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission in 2006 which had explicitly concluded that security forces personnel were involved in several high profile human rights violations including the killing of five students in Trincomalee in January 2006 and the abduction on 31 January 2006.

We publish below our correspondence with Dr Coomaraswamy;

From Dr Coomaraswamy to Colombo Telegraph;                            Read More