All UK deportees now in their homes in Lanka

by Dhaneshi YATAWARA

Sri Lanka Police have found no criminal charges against the asylum-seekers who were deported from the United Kingdom on June 16. According to the Police, the team comprised 26 people of whom four were Sinhalese, seven Muslims and 15 Tamils.

“The Police did not arrest them and they were not questioned by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) either.

“All of them have already returned to their homes”, said Police Spokesman SP Prishantha Jayakody. As SP Jayakody explained, the CID does not unnecessarily detain people if they don’t have criminal records.

These 26 people have been deported from the UK only on violations of immigration laws, according to SP Jayakody.

The British Government has deported them after finding that they have overstayed their visas and requests for asylum status by some of them were turned down by the authorities.

Many Western news outlets reported that these people supposedly had links with the LTTE while they were in their motherland.

They reached Sri Lanka on June 15 on board a special flight. The move by the British Government to deport these Sri Lankans was resisted by numerous Western- based human rights organisations.