COLOMBO, 3 July 2003 — A Sri Lankan court sentenced five people to death, including two police officers, for their role in a massacre at a detention camp housing suspected Tamil Tiger rebels and former child soldiers, reports said yesterday.
Less than half of the 40 inmates of the Bindunuwewa camp 200 km east of Colombo survived after a machete-wielding mob rampaged through the rehabilitation camp in October 2000.
Tamil protests over the massacre turned violent, sparking Sri Lanka’s worst inter-communal violence since 1983, when an anti-Tamil riot plunged the country into the full-scale war that has cost 64,000 lives and displaced one million.
The sentences for the massacre, which sparked the island’s worst ethnic riots in 18 years, were automatically commuted to life imprisonment as the country has had a moratorium on the death penalty since 1976. Local media said the 94-page judgment released late on Tuesday condemned police officers for complicity in the attack.
“The police officers who were in uniform and armed could have at least prevented or controlled the situation. By not doing so they had aided and abetted the crime,” the local Daily Mirror reported.
The island is enjoying the longest lull in fighting since 1983 due to a Norwegian-brokered truce signed in February last year, and the Tigers and government have held several rounds of peace talks.
But the rebels, who have been fighting for a separate state for Tamils in the north and east, said justice was not served by convicting five in a case they allege involved a mob of between 800 and 3,000 villagers.
“Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-dominated law and order apparatus assures Sinhalese, be they security forces personnel or civilians, of impunity when it comes to atrocities against Tamils,” the pro-rebel Tamil Guardian said in an editorial.
“Justice has not been served in relation to the Bindunuwewa massacre,” it said.
Out of the 18 who faced trial over the massacre, 13 were discharged on Tuesday because of lack of evidence and another 23 indicted were released before going to trial.
The five convicted have the right to appeal.
Probe into Human Smuggling
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has launched a probe into the smuggling of foreign nationals to Italy, a day after more than 250 Pakistani nationals were arrested.
CID officials said they believed the smuggling of foreigners through small fishing harbors in Sri Lanka’s south has turned into a major business.
Police arrested 254 Pakistanis in Tangalle, 210 km south of Colombo, before they could be smuggled out of the country on a ship registered in Greece.
The Pakistanis who legally entered Sri Lanka with valid passports paid up to 500,000 rupees ($5,200) for passage to Italy, which would take more than four weeks. Police said the Pakistanis would be brought before a magistrate, and likely remanded.
