LTTE senior official's wife witnesses on SLA war crime

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 November 2010, 15:07 GMT]
“I have not seen my husband Yogarathinam Jogi who was taken away by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vadduvaakal in Mullaiththeevu on 18th May 2009 after surrendering himself expecting general amnesty as announced by SLA that day over loud speaker,” the wife of Yogaratnam Yogi, a senior member of the LTTE said bearing witness before the Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) Thursday around 3:30 p.m in Ariyaalai Saraswathy Community Centre. In response to a question by Rajapaksa's LLRC panel Ms. Jeyavathy Jogi, who confirmed that her husband was Mr. Yogi, further said that she saw her husband being taken away along with 50 others including poet Puthuvai Irtathinathurai and Lawrence Thilakar who had surrendered themselves to SLA. “My husband surrendered himself to SLA believing that he will be given amnesty as assured by the SLA announcement,” Ms. Jeyavathy said.



Jeyavathy Jogi was the first person to witness before the LLRC Thursday in Jaffna.

It was earlier announced that LLRC will commence hearings Thursday morning in Kurunakar but as the LLRC panel from Colombo arrived late the venue was shifted to Ariyaalai.

However, more than a hundred persons gathered at Saraswathy Community Centre in Ariyaalai Thursday to witness before LLRC.

On being asked whether she could identify the [SLA] personnel who took her husband away Jeyavathy said that she cannot do so as she did know them.

Jeyavathy further told the Committee that though she had appealed to Sri Lankan Attorney General seeking help to trace her husband in August 2010 she had not heard anything about her husband.

Mr. Yogaratnam Yogi was the political chief of the LTTE, who presided over the handing over of LTTE arms in 1987 after the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. The senior leader was in charge of LTTE's research centre on war records.



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