Major General de Silva to return
Major General Prasanna de Silva – the defence adviser at the Sri Lanka high commission in London – is to return to Sri Lanka soon, the Guardian newspaper reported.
This comes as an organisation representing the Tamil diaspora was set to launch legal action against the British Foreign Office over its failure to confront Major General de Silva over allegations of being involved in alleged war crimes.
The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) alleges that Silva was involved in systematic attacks on Tamil civilians between January and May 2009 when he was a senior commander in the Sri Lankan army.
It decided to press for a judicial review of the FCO’s actions after the British foreign secretary, William Hague, refused to declare Silva persona non grata and strip him of his diplomatic immunity so he could be questioned over the allegations. Scotland Yard has been handed a dossier on the allegations facing Silva but has refused to comment further on the matter.
It has emerged in the last few days that Silva is soon to return to Sri Lanka, raising fears that he may avoid questioning. The FCO’s legal advisers have also written to the GTF’s solicitors, Birnberg, Peirce and Partners, informing them there will be a two-week delay in dealing with the case because of the Easter recess.
A spokesman for the Sri Lankan government told the Guardian on Wednesday night that Silva was going home because his 18-month term as defence adviser was almost up, adding: “The claim of a lawsuit by the GTF has nothing to do with this routine transfer matter and it appears to be yet another invidious attempt to embarrass both Sri Lankan and British governments and a continuation of GTF’s history of attempting to gain misplaced publicity mileage for events it has nothing to do with.”
The Sri Lankan high commission has previously described allegations against Silva as “highly spurious and uncorroborated” and accused British media of seeking “entirely falsely, to implicate members of the Sri Lankan government and senior military figures” in such acts.
The GTF – which points out that the dossier in the hands of the Metropolitan police has also been in the possession of the FCO since late January – worries that Silva will have left the UK by the time action is taken.
“All we are seeking is justice for the hundreds of thousands of innocent people who allegedly perished at the hands of the likes of Prasanna de Silva and others,” said a spokesman. “Our kind request to the secretary of state is to let the legal process decide whether Maj Gen Silva is guilty or not guilty.”
The GTF, he added, has “complete faith in the British justice system”.
The Foreign Office confirmed it had received a dossier on Silva in January and had advised the NGOs who compiled it – the Society for Threatened Peoples, Trial and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights – to pass “any credible evidence” on to the Met.
“We also looked closely at the dossier ourselves,” said an FCO spokesman. “However, while we were assessing this evidence, we were notified that Silva was planning to move on soon.” The spokesman said that while the British government takes all such allegations very seriously, he was unable to comment on the legal action brought by the GTF.
Siobhain McDonagh, the Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden and vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Tamils, described the FCO’s failure to act sooner on the dossier as “unfathomable”.
“It does seem extraordinary [for the FCO] to take no action and just rely upon the Sri Lankan government to withdraw him,” she said. “Given the evidence and that the government saw the dossier from the NGOs, why on earth did they take no action?”
The British government’s behaviour, she added, would send an unfortunate message about the UK’s commitment to human rights. “If you get a reputation for taking people who there are serious allegations of war crimes against, do other countries do the same thing?” she said.
“Do we want people who have those allegations against them here? Do we want people to think that we’re an easy or a soft option?”
Fred Carver, the campaign director of the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, said he could not believe that the British government had accepted Silva’s diplomatic accreditation in the first place.
“Any intern equipped with Google and a working mouse could have determined that there were credible allegations against Silva,” he said.
“Now they know what they should have previously suspected and investigated, they should not hesitate to revoke it before it is too late. If they do nothing then Silva’s unhindered return will be rightly interpreted as signifying that Britain is soft on war crimes suspects.”
Be a strong model in ACTION in INACTION!
In the first place Sri Lankan government should not have sent Mr Silva to London. We all know the Tamil diasporas are very strong in London. What happened to our President in December 2010. He had to cut short his tour and returned back to Colombo. Tamil diasporas will not rest until all the criminals are brought to justice. So we need to be very careful. GTF is getting stronger by day. Lot of professionals are joining in hand with them. They also receive support from various governments and politicians. The only way Sri Lankan government can win the battle is to implement the recommendations mentioned in the LLRC report. Win the heart of the Tamil people. No point in blaming foreign coutries for our mistake. Time is slowly running out. Wimal, Champika and Mervyn are the stupid people in the government dragging us into further problems.
You are correct,tamils willnot rest until all those responsible for the war crime are punished.
The is VERY ripe for o0ther crooks,silva and kohonna to head home before being paraded in hand cuffs in living color.
Atleast they have maldives ,another sinking atoll(a–hole) to splurge close to pakses.
Bye bye NYC GROBR!!!!
I’m proud to be an American!
All the Good work by the Tamil Diaspora and the USA will bring Justice to the Tamil victims soon. And Australia Stand Up to your signature responsibilities in the UNHRC and Federal Police make your Mark The Palitha Kohona Arrest the man
Sri Minal says: ”Tamil diasporas will not rest until all the criminals are brought to justice”
Is this including LTTE murdrers and madam Balasingham hiding in UK? Or is he seriously saying LTTE never committed any crimes.
Or he should change his comment to say ” Tamil diasporas can rest with the crimes committed by the LTTE but will not rest until all the Sr Lankan army criminals are brought to justice.
Prasanna de Silva to return to Sri Lanka before he is charged in the UK? How many more to return to Sri Lanka? The effect of US resolution has started to react on all these Majors?
In December, 2010 MR had to return from UK in a hurry, In 2011 Goat could’nt attned his son’s wedidng recption in USA
The secondn envoy to be recalled. from UK and to follow the line are Shavendra from UN head quarters in NY and the Thshara from down under. Why all this is because tha war crimes have een committed and they do not want to face the cosequences. This proves that they have committed.the crime? .
I don’t know about war crimes but this guy really kick some LTTE butt. You rock man..
Time to pull back all those who played a role in the war crime and genocide. Sri Lanka has agains become an island ha!!!
So there could well be substance?! The easter holidays is 4 days in UK , not 14 days!! What’s going on? Another Karuna type story?
Civilised society will not tolerate war criminals. Sri LAnka is one of the paradise for war criminals. So all Sinhala criminals has to come back to this country ruled by criminals. When war criminal Sharvendra Silva is going to runaway from UN inorder to hide in Sri Lanka?
“If you get a reputation for taking people who there are serious allegations of war crimes against…” What about Anton Balasingham & co? What about Adele Balasingham? Is it ok to allow Tamil diaspora funding with coercion and intimidation to arm other people’s Tamil kids to kill and blow themselves up? Why did tigers who got diapora money, accept millions in bribes from Sinhalese and prevent people from voting in 2005? Why did they cut off the hand of the 1 man who voted? Do British taxpayers know that their govt encouraged terrorism? I am not denying there was discrimination against minorities (Tamil Languauge made official oly in 1987) , but is a murderous rebellion a solution?
The UNHCR is the place where the President went to make representations against the then UNP Government , At that time they were the only hope. Now that their action is on the side of the Tamils every one is skeptical. This is RACISM in its purest form. Do what it needed to keep the country intact and the minorities happy and respecting their country not because they have to but because they love to.. You cannot achieve that by bulling them – When I talk of minorities i mean anyone not towing the arrogant government line.
What does his fast exit indicate? Not innocence for sure. The past is bound to catch up one of these days until better sense prevails.They can run now but not hide forever!
What about Tony Blair for war crimes? What is British justice system? Is Tony Blair is super human? Innocent unarmed Iraqi civilians killed by UK soldiers. This is well known secret. Where is International Community. Only UK, EU and USA got a Licence from UN to kill innocent civilians of this world?
Appointing Army officers to foreign services is a conspiracy to put them in front to shield the real culprit of human rights abuses. And the corrupt regime was in fear of the high ranking Army officers rising against them in future. And these army officers too had no regards or gratitude toward their mentor General Sarath Fonseka and betrayed him. Good lesson for cowards.
well for the diaspora dummies, his serving term is over in London. And i see that the Sunday leader didn’t care to mention that fact.
Whether the diaspora is going to do something or not he was supposed to return by now.
diaspora just thought, what the heck and decided to “show” their “supporters” that they chased him away.
The UK government is responsible for the mess in Sri Lanka today and the sufferings of the Tamils. De Silva should be behind bars for life for their part in crimes against humanity!