President appoints commissioners to Office of Missing Persons

President Maithripala Sirisena handed over the appointment letters to the commissioners of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday (Feb 28),  the government news portal reported.

The OMP law was passed in Parliament in Aug 2016 and will now be operational. The OMP is tasked with determining the status of all missing persons in Sri Lanka and is the first pillar of the Transitional Justice mechanisms under design and implementation.

The Commissioners were appointed for a 3-year period include;

Mr Saliya Pieris, PC – Chairman/ OMP

Ms Jayatheepa Punniyamoorthy – Member/OMP

Major General (Rtd.) Mohanti Antonette Peiris – Member/ OMP

Dr Sriyani Nimalka Fernando – Member/ OMP

Mr Mirak Raheem – Member/ OMP

Mr Somasiri K Liyanage – Member/ OMP

Mr Kanapathipillai Venthan – Member/ OMP

Sri Lanka’s National Budget for 2018 also made an allocation of Rs 1.3bn to establish the OMP.

The Commissioners were selected in an open and competitive process conducted by the Constitutional Council (CC) of Sri Lanka and were nominated by them for appointment to the President.