Anuradhapura Magistrate to hold Muthur massacre inquiry in Kantalai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 September 2006, 11:51 GMT]
The magisterial inquiry into the 16 Tamil and a Muslim aid workers' massacre is to commence from October 4 in the Kantalai Magistrate' Court. Sri Lanka's Judicial Services Commission (JSC) has appointed Anuradhapura Magistrate Wasantha Jinadasa to conduct the inquiry, legal sources said. Earlier, on August 08, a Sinhalese Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) was brought from Anuradhapura to conduct the post-mortem examinations on the the orders of the Sri Lankan authorities. Later, Colombo transfered the NGO massacre investigation to Anuradhapura. Now the JSC has chosen to conduct the investigations at Kantalai courts. However, Anuradhapura magistrate is to hold the investigations.

Anuradhapura Magistrate Mr.Wasantha Jinadasa has directed his Registrar to serve summons on the witnesses listed in the case to be present in Kantalai magistrate's court on October 4th and the inquiry will be held continuously from this date, legal sources said.

Meanwhile Magistrate Mr.Wasantha Jinadasa allowed the application by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Sri Lanka Police to exhume the balance bodies of fifteen aid workers of the French non-governmental organization "Action against Hunger" (ACF).

Already on the orders of the magistrate two bodies of the seventeen aid workers who were killed last month in Muthur were exhumed and those remains were sent to Colombo for forensic examination. These exhumations took place with the consent of relatives of those two workers, legal sources said.

Dr.Dhananjaya Waidiaratne, Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) of the Anuradhapura general hospital conducted the post-mortem examinations of the bodies of seventeen aid workers in the Trincomalee general hospital.

The inquiry into the massacre was transferred to Anuradhapura Magistrate Court on the instruction of the JSC when the Muthur Magistrate who heard the case since its inception was about to deliver his order last month, legal sources said.

Kantalai is located about 39 km southwest of Trincomalee town along Trincomalee-Kandy highway.

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