Colombo wants discarded confessions obtained through torture reused against political prisoners

Colombo's Attorney General's Department and the judges appointed with a pre-determined agenda to the so-called Special Courts to hear the cases of Tamil prisoners, are trying to accord new ‘credibility’ to confessions obtained through torture to sentence Tamil political prisoners with long term imprisonment, say political prisoners in Anuradhapura. The false confessions allegedly obtained through torture were being dismissed by the courts in North-East. The SL State responded through its Attorney General’s Department deploying various tactics to transfer these cases to the so-called Special Courts with an intention of punishing the Tamil political prisoners as criminal offenders. Tamil political prisoners are going to agitate against the move and seek support from Tamil activists in the island and outside.

The SL State and its leaders, who have refused to categorize Tamil prisoners as political prisoners, have gone on record stating there are no ‘political prisoners’.

Immediately after getting ‘awarded’ with another escape through the Office of the UN Human Rights High Commissioner (OHCHR) and the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the SL State sentenced a 60-year-old political prisoner, Thevathasan Kanagasabai, a former director of the Tamil unit of the ‘National Film Corporation’, with 20 years of imprisonment in March. The Special Court in Colombo sentenced him with the accusation that he was assisting LTTE Black Tigers during the times of war.

Now, the SL Special Court in Anurathapura is trying to accord ‘credibility’ to confessions obtained through torture against Tamil political prisoners who are accused with downing a China-made Pucara bomber from Vilpattu jungle. The sources close to the two Tamil prisoners languishing in Anuradhapura prison said the ‘Special Court’ was giving credibility to the torture-obtained confessions through judges giving opinion on them.

The Tamil political prisoners are now planning to launch a protest campaign to make the outside world aware of the injustices being committed against them.