Case on Mannar bone samples postponed until court receives hardcopy of reports

The case pertaining to the carbon dating reports of bone samples from the Mannar mass grave has been postponed until the hardcopy of all six bone samples can be produced before court.

At present, the BETA Analytics Department in Florida, US is carrying out a carbon dating test to determine the age of six bone samples belonging to the Mannar mass grave.

"Five e-reports of the bone samples were received last Friday while the report on the sixth sample would be sent within a few days," Special Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) Dr. Saminda Rajapaksa told Times Online.

He explained that the report on the remaining sample has been delayed since the bone contains less collagen - a substance which is essential to carry out the test.

"The bone was found to have been excessively decayed," Dr. Rajapaksa said on the same note.

Speaking on the side lines of today's court proceedings, he said that printouts of the e-reports which he received via email late last Friday were produced in courts today (Feb 20).

However, the Mannar Magistrate had ordered that the entire report containing the hardcopies of all six samples must be produced before court in order to determine the future course of action.