News Digest

U.N. calls for special court to prosecute Sri Lanka war crimes

A long-awaited U.N. report has detailed horrific abuses committed in Sri Lanka’s civil war and said the country needed international help to probe the crimes to enable reconciliation. Despite pledges by the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena to pursue accountability domestically, the criminal justice system is not up to the huge task alone, said the report by the U.N. human rights office.

A purely domestic court procedure will have no chance of overcoming widespread and justifiable suspicions fuelled by decades of violations, malpractice and broken promises

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein

The U.N. investigation, set up in March 2014, said that there was a “systemic weakness in addressing these crimes especially when the military or security forces are involved.” It said Sri Lanka should set up a “hybrid special court integrating international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators” to try war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed by both sides. Tens of thousands of people went missing in Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war, the UN report said, suggesting “enforced disappearance” was part of a systematic policy.

The levels of mistrust in state authorities and institutions by broad segments of Sri Lankan society should not be underestimated.

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein