Kalutara Tamil prisoners will stay - G.L Pieris

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 December 1997, 23:59 GMT]
It was decided at a high level meeting convened by Prof. G.L Pieris this morning that Tamil political prisoners will not be transferred from the Kalutara jail where three of them were massacred and more than seven wounded on December 12.

Instead, the government will set up a special Police unit in the prison premises until the Tamil political prisoners are transferred to the large detention camp in Boosa further south of Kalutara, in the district of Galle.

It was decided that repairs to this detention camp should be completed within a month.

The meeting was held at the Ministry of Finance by Sri Lanka's army commander Lt. General Rohan Daluwatte, Inspector General of Police W.B Rajaguru, Attorney General Mr. Sarath Silva, Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Mr. M. S Jayasinghe, Additional Secretary S. Wickremaarachi and the Commissioner General of Prisons attended the morning conference.

It was also resolved at this meeting that an investigation into the prison killing should be conducted and that an internal inquiry should be launched by the prison authorities.

The army was of the opinion that the prisoners should sent to Boosa only after the camp is strengthened as all the Tamil political prisoners at Kalutara were LTTE suspects.

Thousands of Tamil youth arrested in various parts of the north and east and the other parts of the island between 1983 and early 1987 were held in the infamous Boosa camp until October 1987.

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