Punguduthivu body may belong to Fr.Brown, say Jaffna clergy

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 April 2007, 02:06 GMT]
The Catholic clergy of Jaffna peninsula suspect that the mutilated torso found at Punkuduthivu sea on 14 March 2007 packed in a military sand bag tied with a grindstone by barbed wire, likely belongs to the disappeared Catholic priest Rev. Fr. Jim Brown, sources close to the church in Jaffna said. The church has appealed to the Jaffna Magistrate to facilitate sending blood samples to an authorized lab in Colombo to perform DNA tests to identify the suspect body.

Rev.Fr. Thiruchelvam Nihal Jim Brown, 34, Parish Priest of Allaippiddy and his aide Wenceslaus Vincent Vimalan, 38, disappeared on 20 August 2006 after being interrogated by the Sri Lanka Army at Mandaithivu checkpoint.

The Catholic clergy and Jaffna residents organized several protest actions urging the SLA to release information on the disappearance.

The special envoy to the Pope too visited Jaffna in this regard.

Extra effort taken by the killers to ensure that the murdered body remained at the bottom of the ocean have aroused suspicion that the body belongs to a VIP.

The torso still remains at the Jaffna Teaching hospital morgue.

Chronology:


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