Sri Lanka rights probe hampered, commission's head says

By Ranga Sirilal

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's probe into rights abuses including the killing of 17 aid workers in 2006 was hampered by the lack of witness protection and its abrupt winding-up, the commission's head said on Tuesday.

On Aug. 4, 2006, 17 mostly Tamil staff members of charity Action Contre la Faim (ACF) were gunned down inside the ACF compound in the northeastern town of Muttur, near where fighting was taking place between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels.

The government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blamed each other for what was then the deadliest attack on aid workers since the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in 2003.

Nordic peace monitors whom the government accused of a pro-rebel bias blamed the attack on security forces.

The report by the commission of inquiry appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to investigate serious human rights abuses is inconclusive about who killed the aid workers.

Foreign observers to the panel two years ago predicted the commission would fail to find anything substantive and quit last year, saying it did not meet international standards and had been interfered with politically. The government denies that.

The commission's mandate was not extended when it expired in June, making it the latest in Sri Lanka's long history of probes into rights abuses that were incomplete or inconclusive.

"We have not been able to complete the whole thing because we didn't have the video conferencing facility and a witness protection bill...is still in parliament," retired Supreme Court Judge Nissanka Udalagama told Reuters.