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| Sunday, 5 May 2002 |
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Monitoring chief orders detailed probe by S. SELVAKUMAR The Chief of the Ceasefire Monitoring Mission Major Gen. Trond Furuhovde has called for a detailed report from the Missions' monitoring units in the East regarding Wednesday night's incident at sea off Vakarai in which the Navy claims that an LTTE arms shipment had been intercepted. Navy officials are understood to have provided sufficient evidence to the Monitoring Mission in the form of crates of mortar shell recovered from the sea, after a large fishing vessel blew up under Naval fire. Controversy rages over the Vakarai boat incident off the East coast last Wednesday in which the Navy claims that an LTTE vessel carrying mortars and explosives exploded in midsea when the Navy approached the suspicious boat. The LTTE denies the charges and says it was a fishing boat that came under naval gunfire and was totally destroyed killing two occupants in it while injuring several others who were fishing alongside. Deputy head of the Mission Hagrup Haukland, told the 'Sunday Observer' that he had met LTTE political wing leader S.P. Thamilchelvam in Kilinochchi last Thursday and that the latter had totally denied that any LTTE boats were involved in the fracas. Thamilchelvam has complained to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission as this was a blatant violation of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Government and the LTTE. The Navy, too, has lodged a similar complaint with the Monitoring Mission, Mr. Haukland said. When asked whether he had visited the location of the incident off the East coast, he said members of the Monitoring mission based in Trincomalee were taken to the spot by the Sri Lanka Navy where they had shown the monitors the debris of the destroyed boat. Asked about newspaper reports that the Navy recovered a box of mortars from the place of the incident, Haukland said the Navy had shown them a box containing mortar shells which was on board a naval vessel, but he was unable to say whether it was recovered from the sea. Meanwhile, 34 fishermen - 18 Muslims and 16 Sinhalese - landed on the Vakarai shores twenty-four hours after the incident and they are now being looked after by the LTTE. The fishermen are regular migrants from Puttalam. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission has called for detailed reports from the LTTE and the Navy on Wednesday's incident and Haukland said that the Mission would give a ruling on the matter after studying these reports and the report that would be forwarded by the Monitoring Mission units based in Trincomalee and Batticaloa. Meanwhile, a Muslim fisherman named Noor Muhammed Nazeer from Valaichenai is reported to have told members of the Monitoring Mission based in Batticaloa that when the Navy boat opened fire on their fishing vessel, the owner of the fishing craft died on the spot while he and another person escaped with injuries. As they swam to the beach, his companion had drowned while Nazeer is now undergoing treatment at the Valaichenai Hospital. |
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