2ND LEAD (Adds video)

LLRC witnesses forced to accept death certificates for people handed over to SLA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 July 2012, 23:18 GMT]
A group of Sri Lanka Army officers from the JOSSOP camp in Vavuniyaa, which is the operational headquarters of the occupying SL military in Vanni, have been visiting Mullaiththeevu district in recent days, exerting pressure on the families of the missing persons in the district to receive death certificates for the victims. Suresh Premachandran MP of the Tamil National Alliance, who held a press conference in Jaffna on Monday, said that some of the families declare that they had personally handed over their family members at Oamanthai checkpost during the final hours of the war in 2009. “If these members were handed over to the SLA, then the SL military is answerable for their death,” Mr Premachandran said.



Key members of the families of the missing persons were summoned to Mullaiththeevu police station by the SL police, and a section of these families have been forced to sign on plain papers, sources in Mullaiththeevu told TamilNet.

The families of the victims have been complaining with the ICRC, Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission and with Rajapaksa's LLRC.

The victims also report that the SLA has forced some of the family members to sign on plain papers.

The SLA reportedly told the affected families that it considered a victim as dead if the person had been reported missing for more than 3 years.

The choice of the LLRC witnesses in forcibly issuing death certificates has larger motives on the part of the genocidal Sinhala military in showing accounts to international bodies and to facilitate its mentors such as the USA and India to continue harping on the LLRC recommendations, Tamil political observers said.

Chronology: