Aid workers' postmortem scheduled to begin this week

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 October 2006, 12:42 GMT]
Postmortem examinations on eleven bodies of seventeen aid workers killed in Muttur in the first week of August exhumed and kept in Colombo police morgue would begin in the presence of Australian forensic experts who are expected before the end of this week, sources in Colombo said.

The Judicial Medical Officer of Anuradhapura general hospital Dr.Dhananjaya Waidiaratne who held the first post-mortem on all the seventeen bodies is assigned to hold second post-mortem with the assistance of Colombo Judicial Medical Officer Dr.L.B.L.de Silva and Avissawella Judicial Medical Officer Dr.P.B.Dissanayake in the presence of Anuradhapura Magistrate Wasantha Jinasena, legal sources said.

The second post-mortem examination is expected to last five to six days, medical sources said.

Mr.Jinasena has been specially appointed to the hold the magisterial inquest into these killings by Judicial Services Commission (JSC), sources said

Bodies of three aid workers were not exhumed as relatives were not present at the exhumation site. Relatives of two aid workers were not able to identify the sites where bodies were buried.

The family of the Muslim aid worker did not give consent to exhume the body, sources said.

These aid workers were working for the French based Action against Hunger (ACF), a non-governmental organization in Muttur, at that time of the massacre, sources said.

External Links:

ACF:

Muttur Massacre

Chronology: