Sri Lanka's president reiterated his refusal to allow foreign judges into any inquiry examining human rights violations during the final stages of the armed conflict, whilst claiming that Sri Lanka had not been accused of committing international war crimes.
"Sri Lanka has not been accused of committing any ‘international war crimes’ and reiterates that he will never allow the participation of foreign judges in the mechanism to investigate allegations of human rights violations," he told Derana 360° in an interview.
“Therefore I told them not to send foreign judged to my country. There will be no international war tribunals or electric chairs,” he added.
“Some people are incorrectly defining that we have been accused of international war crimes. At no point has the Human Rights Council said that we have committed international war crimes. There is clearly no such thing.”
Mr Sirisena also said the former foreign minister, Mangala Samaraweera was removed from his post for agreeing to co-sponsor the UN Human Rights Council resolution which included the participation of foreign judges in a hybrid inquiry.
See video of the interview and Ada Derana's translated excerpts here.
