Rights group concerned at Sri Lanka massacre probe

By Simon Gardner

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A Sri Lankan government probe into the massacre last year of 17 aid workers that international truce monitors have blamed on the military is beset with shortcomings, an international rights group cautioned on Friday.

Authorities are still probing the execution-style killings of local staff of French aid group Action Contre La Faim -- the worst attack on humanitarian workers since a 2003 suicide bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad killed 22 U.N. staff.

But so far police have failed to properly explore the possibility that troops rather than Tamil Tiger rebels could have been responsible and forensic evidence was only examined by local experts despite a magistrate's order for international involvement, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said.

"The Sri Lankan government needs to dispel serious concerns about whether the justice system is now able to carry out independent and credible investigations into who was responsible for these killings and to mount effective prosecutions," said British lawyer Michael Birnbaum QC.

"There have been in this country so many appalling outrages ... and yet there have been no charges, let alone convictions," Birnbaum, who represented the ICJ at the inquest hearings, added.

The government announced a probe into the killings last year amid international outrage and the bodies have been exhumed and examined by forensics. But no arrests have yet been made.

In the days after the massacre in August 2006, Nordic truce monitors were prevented from reaching the site in the northeastern town of Muttur and said they were convinced only the security forces could have been behind the killings -- which the government strenuously denies.

A panel of foreign experts appointed by the international community will now observe a presidential commission which will probe a series of rights abuse cases, including the aid worker massacre.

"I think if this matter were properly and fully and professionally investigated, one might well be able to find who did it," said Birnbaum. "It would also involve a full forensic investigation."

"I regret that so far they haven't got any statements ... from military personnel or any Tamils," he added. The failure to obtain a ballistics report with the assistance of the Australian experts is very regrettable, but that is something that might be put right."

The investigating magistrate was also changed early in the probe, in a move Birnbaum said was both virtually unprecedented and unlawful.

As with probes into a rash of abductions, disappearances and murders plaguing a deadly new chapter in Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war, the lack of a witness protection scheme is also a major obstacle.

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArtic...ia-290460-1.xml

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved