Human Rights
Sri Lankan diplomat named in war crimes brief
Sri Lanka’s current high commissioner to Australia has been named in a submission containing allegations of war crimes.
Thisara Samarasinghe
The submission handed to the Australian Federal Police by the Australian chapter of the International Committee of Jurists (ICJ) contains allegations about war crimes committed in 2009 during the final stages of the Sri Lankan government’s bloody war against Tamil Tiger separatists.
The current high commissioner to Australia, former admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, was a commander in the Sri Lankan navy in the closing stages of the war.
“He was temporarily appointed as the regional commander for the eastern region and he was in charge of the sea. and there was shelling from the sea on civilian residences,” Dr Victor Rajakulendra, from the Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations, said.
The high commissioner has rejected all allegations of involvement in war crimes. The president of the Australian chapter of the ICJ, John Dowd, declined to comment on the specifics of the brief. But he called on the AFP to investigate possible war crimes and said Australian law allowed for the prosecution of war crimes committed in other countries.
“We have a very significant number of Sri Lankan people living here,” he said.
“We cannot stand by, particularly as a member of the Commonwealth, and allow another Commonwealth country to ignore matters as serious as genocide and war crimes.
“These things are not easy, they take a lot of time and it is a fairly difficult area of the law, but the Australian Government has enacted legislation that enables prosecutions of international war crimes to occur here.”
The AFP has confirmed it has received the brief.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/