AG to charge police officials for torturing

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 August 2002, 20:49 GMT]
The Attorney General (AG) has taken steps to expedite filing indictments against police officers who face charges of torturing arrested suspects. Most of the tortured persons are Tamil youths and have been arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). A special unit has been set up for this purpose with a senior state counsel Mr.Yasantha Kotegoda as its head, AG department sources said.

Seventeen such cases are to be filed against police officials shortly. Among them are one Deputy Inspector General of Police, several Senior Superintendents of Police and Assistant Superintendents of Police. Already two police officials have been indicted in the Colombo High Court for torturing suspects while in custody, legal sources said.

Human rights activists in past complained that filing cases against errant police officials who commit torture on arrested suspects especially under the Prevention of Terrorism Act to obtain their confession were being done at a very slow pace.

The Attorney General department in ninety nine percent of the PTA cases solely depends on confessions purported to have been made by the suspects. In most of the cases the defence had proved that the police obtained confessions from the accused due to torture, human rights activists said. However, those police officials who tortured the suspects have not been brought to courts. Instead some them have got promotions, human right activists alleged.

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