Lanka rejects video of soldiers killing

New Delhi: The Sri Lankan High Commission in London has denied its army was involved in atrocities against the ethnic Tamil minority after Britain’s Channel 4 news aired a video on Tuesday allegedly showing a soldier executing two men.

News agency AFP reports Channel 4 News aired video of a man dressed in army uniform shooting a naked, bound and blindfolded man in the back of the head, while the bodies of several other men were seen nearby in a muddy field. Another man was also shot in the same way towards the end of the video, which is believed to have been filmed in January on a soldier’s cell phone.

The Lankan High Commission in London denied its army harassed Tamils while fighting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and claimed the video could be doctored.

“The High Commission of Sri Lanka categorically deny that the Sri Lankan armed forces engaged in atrocities against the Sri Lankan Tamil community. They were only engaged in a military offensive against the LTTE,” said a press statement issued by the commission.

“We have noted that in many past instances, various media institutions used doctored videos, photographs and documents to defame the Sri Lankan government and armed forces,” it said.

Channel 4 says it cannot verify the authenticity of the video, which it received from a group called Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka.

The United Nations has estimated that between 80,000 and 100,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka's decades-long conflict with LTTE rebels which the security forces declared ended in May.

The conflict ended after the military took control of all LTTE-held territory and killed LTTE chief V Prabhakaran.

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