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Jayalalithaa demands steps for war crime trial
Chennai, April 22: AIADMK
chief Jayalalithaa today demanded that the
government take 'immediate steps' to make Sri
Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse stand trial
for alleged war crimes during the conflict
between the Lankan armed forces and the LTTE
following a UN report. "The UN Panel report is
very clear. It lists out the war crimes of the
Sri Lankan government," Jayalalithaa said in a
statement here. Quoting from the report, she
said Lankan forces "had shelled no fire zones
and hospitals, deprived humanitarian aid in the
form of food supply and medicine." Slamming her
arch rival and DMK president M Karunanidhi for
his 'three-hour fast' in 2009 demanding a halt
to the Lankan Government offensive, she said the
UN report "clearly holds that the carnage lasted
till May 2009, well after Karunanidhi had made
his dubious claim that hostilities had ended
following his fast on April 27." "The Indian
Government, on its part, should initiate
immediate steps to make Rajapakse and his
cronies stand trial in the International Court
of Justice for his war crimes," she said.
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A three member UN panel had last
week called for setting up an "independent
international mechanism" into "credible"
allegations that Sri Lankan military had
committed war crimes in its final decisive
offensive against Tamil Tigers in 2009.
Describing the report as 'preposterous', Sri
Lanka had yesterday asked the UN not to make it
public, saying it would cause irrepairable
damage to its reconciliation efforts and damage
the UN system itself. The world body has,
however, rejected the Lankan request, saying it
would publish the report in "full". Key excerpts
of the report were carried in a mysterious leak
by Lanka's widely circulated Island newspaper
earlier this week.
