UN report: Lanka officials 'can be arrested'

  29 April, 2011

 UN report: Lanka officials 'can be arrested'

	Mr Rajapakse, PC, says the panel is illegal but the report carries strong authority

Senior Sri Lanka officials may be arrested and tried abroad as a result of the UN expert panel report on Sri Lanka, a legal expert said.

Wijedasa Rajapakshe, an opposition MP, said it is possible for interested parties abroad to seek a warrant to arrest visiting dignitaries as a result of the UN report.

Amnesty International said that Sri Lankan leaders can be charged while they are travelling abroad after the release of the report.

A number of senior Sri Lankan officials and ministers including Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa are citizens of the United States.

Government shelling

“Yes there is such a danger (of an arrest) but ultimately the action will be decided by diplomatic processes of those countires,” Mr Rajapakse, who was briefly a minister of the Rajapaksa administration, told BBC Sinhala service, Sandeshaya.

Yes there is such a danger (of an arrest) but ultimately the action will be decided by diplomatic processes of those countires Wijedasa Rajapakse, President’s Counsel

But he argues the appointment of the panel itself is illegal.

“Although it is illegal, it caries an authority as it was released by the UN Secretary General," said Mr Rajapakse, a President’s Counsel.

He says the UN secretary general has admitted that he has no authority to take any further action against Sri Lanka after he sent a detailed letter to Ban Ki-Moon.

“There can be no investigation into Sri Lanka without Sri Lanka's written consent as Sri Lanka is not party to the Rome Statute,” the United National Party MP said.

	Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is a citizen of the United States

Tens of thousands of civilians died in the final phase of Sri Lanka's civil war - most of them killed in shelling by government forces, a UN panel says.

The panel also says Tamil Tiger rebels used civilians as human shields.

It wants an independent international investigation into "credible" reports of atrocities committed on both sides.

The secretary-general, said Mr Rajapakse, needs the approval of the Security Council if he needs to take any action against Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's government has rejected the findings as 'flawed' and 'biased'. 

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  ‘Solheim transforms from peace facilitator to facilitator of war crimes indictment escape’

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 April 2011, 06:50 GMT]
Norway’s former peace facilitator to the island of Sri Lanka, Mr. Erik Solheim, speaking to Norwegian state owned media NRK (Dagsnytt 18) on Wednesday, argued against any immediate international investigation on the war crimes in the island and said that it is only correct and fair to expect the Sri Lankan authorities to domestically investigate the UN panel material. According to him, this is what the ‘broader international community’ including nearly all the Western countries want. Solheim defended Ban Ki Moon, as his situation is difficult, accused the Tigers for not listening to his surrender call since five months before the end of the war, and suggested a new principle for international law that since Tiger leaders are now eliminated, domestic handling should be given a chance than ‘one-sided’ international indictment of Sri Lankan state.

Erik Solheim speaking to NRK on Wednesday

Responding, the diaspora Tamil circles said that they were not surprised at such opinion and even practical course of action, as long as Ban Ki Moon and Vijay Nambiar of the UN, Robert Blake of the US State Department, Shiv Shankar Menon of the Indian establishment and Erik Solheim of Norway who were a party to all what had happened continue to deal with the outcome.

The diaspora Tamil circles also pointed out to a British Foreign Office statement Wednesday that had said nothing on international investigation but had vaguely called for independent and credible investigation without specifying who should conduct it.    Full Story.>>>