Rights groups urge Swiss Attorney General to prosecute Dias for war-crimes

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 August 2011, 16:42 GMT]
Society for Threatened People and TRIAL, two advocacy groups based in Europe, requested the Swiss Attorney General today to pursue war crimes charges against Jegath Dias, SriLanka's deputy ambassador to Germany and former major general in Sri Lanka's armed forces. The groups allege that Dias's division was "responsible for massive bombing of civilians and hospitals," an AP report said. This action follows the filing of a complaint against the Federal Republic of Germany with the European Courts of Human Rights (ECHR) for violating the ‘European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, in accepting Dias as a Diplomat, by three Tamil organizations.

"We have made a case based on the credible and serious accusations of international organizations and human rights organizations, and we consider the Jegath Dias may be arrested in Switzerland even if he has diplomatic status," AP quoted Benedict De Moerloose, the TRIAL's counsel, as saying.

Sri Lanka's embassy in Berlin is reported to have said it will provide comment later Thursday.

Dias was appointed to the Diplomatic position in September 2009 as part of Colombo's broad strategy of sanitizing ex-Army generals tainted with war-crimes accusations, Prof Boyle, an expert in international law and Professor at the College of Law, University of Illinois, commented in an earlier article.

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External Links:

AP:

Groups ask Swiss to prosecute Sri Lankan diplomat