9 armymen held for killing Tamilians

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, DEC. 26. An officer and eight soldiers have been arrested by the military police for allegedly killing eight Tamil civilians at Chavakachcheri in Jaffna peninsula.

All the victims, residents of Mirusuvil, were male. There were two teenagers and a five-year-old among them, and were missing since December 19 in the Mirusivil area.Their bodies, found in a pit in the area, reportedly bore marks of severe beatings and torture.

The victims were displaced by recent fighting in the area and had moved to Vadamarachchi.

On the day they went missing, they had returned to Mirusuvil to check if the properties and belongings they had left behind were intact, and were not seen thereafter.

Hinting that they may have been killed because they were unwitting witnesses to an offence committed by the army in the area, the Defence Ministry said the army commander, Major- General Lionel Balagalle, had ordered another inquiry, separate from the murder investigation, into this aspect of the case.

The speed with which the military had acted in this case showed the Government was keen to avoid more criticism of the kind that followed the prison massacre at Bindunuweva in October, one of the biggest human rights embarrassments suffered by the Kumaratunga Government.

In fact, the Defence Ministry was the first to break the news of the incident, effectively pre-empting the outcry that could have accompanied it had it surfaced through other sources.

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Section  : International
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