Paranagama Commission probes abduction claims

5-member team visit military camps in North:

19,000 complaints lodged with Commission:

by Manjula Fernando

The investigative team of the Paranagama missing persons’ commission, recently visited military camps in the North to interview the officers and verify claims of abductions, in the run up to the UNHRC sessions in Geneva.

A senior official said the five-member team comprising retired police officers, supervised by a retired High Court judge has been entrusted with digging deep into the cases of abductions, which needs further investigation before any recommendations are made to the President.

The team was appointed after the Commissioners pointed out that they needed an expert team to verify some of the claims made by the relatives of missing persons.

The investigators also called over at the Welikada prison a week before to interview the LTTE detainees in prison. A total of over 19,000 complaints from the North as well as the South, will be investigated before their final report is issued, the official said.

The Commission has received another extension till February next year to carry out their task.

The investigation arm will work under the first mandate of the Presidential Commission, in which they have to inquire into over 19,000 complaints. The official said inquiries on 3600 complaints have already been completed.

He said, “The final report of the second mandate and the second interim report of the first mandate, will be handed in shortly to be decided upon by the President,” adding that no final decision has been made as to whether the report on the second mandate will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva.

Initially appointed to inquire into and report on any person missing since June 10 1990 to May 19, 2009 in the North and East Provinces, the Commission in March 2014 was asked to look into all disappearances dating from January 1983. A second mandate r in July 2014, required them to investigate certain outstanding issues covered by the LLRC, such as causes for loss of civilian life at the last stages of the conflict and the extent by which the LTTE breached international laws of war by the use of civilians as a shield.

A panel of international legal experts was appointed by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to assist the Commissioners in the area of International Humanitarian and Human Rights laws.

“Since the Commission concluded their job under the second mandate, the term of the international expert panel, which expired on August 16, 2015, was not renewed,” the official added.

In June this year the President appointed two additional commissioners to the panel, retired High Court Judge Tillekeratne Ratnayake and Retired Ministry Secretary, H. Sumanapala, to speed up the process. The Commission headed by Retired High Court Judge Maxwell Paranangama comprises Suranjana Vidyaratne and Mano Ramanathan.