Activists question delay in releasing report on Welikada prison riot

Civil Society organizations today called on the government to urgently release the report compiled by the three-member committee appointed to probe the 2012 Welikada Prison riot that left 27 inmates dead.

Speaking at a media briefing in Colombo today, Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights and Research (CHR), Keerthi Tennakoon pointed out that it was now nine months since the report was completed and handed over to Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. However, it has since been kept locked inside a safe at the Justice Ministry and is yet to be made public, he added.

He questioned as to why the government was continuing to delay making the report public, and taking action against those who murdered unarmed prisoners.

Activists present at today’s media briefing maintained that all the 27 inmates who died in the riot were in fact, murdered in cold blood by security forces personnel on the orders of senior officials who headed the Ministry of Defence at the time.

They produced graphic photographs of what they claimed were bodies of some of the unarmed inmates just after they had been shot dead. Firearms had been later positioned next to them in an attempt to show that they were armed at the time of death.

Security forces personnel had shot and killed the prisoners after entering the prison premises armed with a ‘kill list’ of inmates authorized by senior defence officials, it was further claimed.

Attorney-At-Law Namal Rajapakse, addressing journalists, claimed even remand prisoners, who are seen as innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, were murdered in this way by security forces personnel.

Activists further warned that if the government kept trying to suppress the report and failed to release it this month, they would take steps to publically name those who were involved in the murders, as well as elements within the current government who were attempting to cover the matter up and save those who gave orders to kill the prisoners.

The three-member committee was appointed to probe the riot in February last year and submitted its report in June. Over 100 persons are reported to have given evidence before the commission. 

 

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