Fleeing civilian youths misused to fabricate SLA propaganda

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 January 2009, 13:07 GMT]
Six Tamil youths who recently moved from the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) controlled area to Vavuniyaa were arrested by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, taken to a nearby army camp where they were given LTTE military uniforms and were forced to give video and voice cuts saying that they were LTTE cadres, who were fed up with the Tiger hierarchy and decided to hand over themselves to the SLA, legal sources in Vavuniya said. Vavuniyaa Magistrate has instructed the Police to approach the families of the youth through Government officials and to initiate family re-union.

Vavuniyaa Police produced the six youths before the Vavuniyaa magistrate on Thursday. The youths made a confidential confession to the magistrate and said that they were not from the LTTE but were civilians who fled due to military operations and explained what the SLA did for them.

The victims were identified as Mahalingam Nishanthan, Charles Kingsley Alexjenette, Mahalingam Sothisvaran, Selvarasa Senthuran, Annarasa Jeyarajan and Vasanthakumar Nathan.

Until the arrangements are made the youths have been temporarily provided shelter at Nelukku'lam detention camp in Vavuniyaa, according to the legal sources.



Chronology: