Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has had an indictment filed against him, in Melbourne Magistrates Court, for war crimes.
The indictiment was filed by Arunachalam Jegatheeswaran, an Australian Tamil who witnessed the government's aerial bombardment of hospitals and other civilian buildings during the height of the conflict in 2009.
The charge comes as Rajapaksa is scheduled to arrive in Australia, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth this week.
Speaking to Australian media channel, ABC, Jegatheeswaran explained what he has witnessed:
"Patients were killed and patients who were in the hospital were killed and there were other patients waiting for treatment, they were killed.
"And there was a medical store where they kept the medicines, those were destroyed, scattered all over the place, you can see.
"Ambulances was destroyed. So I have seen that personally."
"The hospital, clearly a big red cross sign was marked on the roof, and drones usually take surveillance, so I'm very positive that they know where the hospital is and they know it'll be damaged. So, that's what I can tell at this stage.
"He's [Rajapaksa] the commander-in-chief and nothing would have happened without his knowledge or his directions, and ultimately, he should be answerable to what was happening."
See here for full interview.
Jegatheeswaran's lawyer, Rob Stary, urged the Australian government to investigate,
''The government will need to show a bit of backbone to investigate it, but there is absolutely no reason on the face of it why they should not pursue it.
"It's incontrovertible in our view that war crimes have been committed."
Stary confirmed the hearing is scheduled to take place on the 29th November.
Under the Australian criminal code, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) must conclude there is sufficient material to compile a brief of evidence of criminality, for the case to proceed. It would then be refered to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions for consideration, before Attorney-General consent is sought.
The International Commission of Jurists' recent submission to the AFP is said to contain a brief of evidence outlining the allegations of war crimes that Rajapaksa is charged with.
The ICJA's report called for the Sri Lankan president and the Sri Lankan high commissioner to Australia, Thisara Samarasinghe, who was the Naval commander in 2009, to be investigated for war crimes.
The filing of this indictment in Australia follows similar attempts in the United States.
See Unconvention US court summons for Rajapaksa (Oct 2011) and US court summons for Rajapaksa (Oct 2011)
