Gotabaya Rajapaksa: Criminal complaint filed against Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Singapore for ‘war crimes’ | World News – Times of India

SINGAPORE: A South Africa-based rights group has submitted a criminal complaint to the Attorney General of Singapore, requesting the arrest of former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya. Rajapaksafor alleged war crimes.
Advocates for the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) submitted a 63-page complaint, which argued that Rajapaksa had committed serious violations of the Geneva Conventions during the civil war in 2009, when he was Secretary of Defense, and that these offenses are crimes that are domestic in Singapore under universal jurisdiction. are subject to prosecution.
The legal complaint states that Gotabaya Rajapaksa had violated international humanitarian law and international criminal law during the civil war. Sri Lanka,
“These include murder, hanging, torture and inhuman treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, deprivation of liberty, serious physical and mental harm and starvation,” the ITJP said in a statement.
Rajapaksa fled to Singapore in mid-July in mid-July after months of massive protests demanding his resignation. The unrest was triggered by the economic collapse of the country. Ranil Wickremesinghe Elected as the new President of Sri Lanka.
Yasmin Souka, executive director of ITJP, said, “The economic slowdown has seen the government fall, but the crisis in Sri Lanka is actually linked to structural punishments for serious international crimes, which have been in place for three decades or more.” “This complaint recognizes that it is not only about corruption and economic mismanagement but also accountability for mass atrocities crimes.”
ITJP, presenting the Attorney General, demanded the arrest, investigation and indictment of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. It underscores the former president’s role as a former military commander in 1989, in charge of a district where at least 700 people disappeared under his watch. The document mainly focuses on his role as Sri Lanka’s Defense Secretary during the end of the country’s civil war in 2009.
According to ITJP, detailed evidence has been added to show that Rajapaksa issued direct telephonic orders to his former military friends, whom he appointed as Major General to command the offensive, and battled surveillance and drone footage at headquarters. Watched the operation live.
The rights group said the dossier they submitted described repeated and deliberate attacks by the military on civilians taking refuge in mud bunkers, who queue for food or visit makeshift clinics. Receive first aid in hellish conditions lying on the floor.
It pointed out that the decision to evacuate aid workers from the war zone in September 2008 was that of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and was designed to hide the extent of human suffering from the eyes of the world. United Nations Offices in the war zone were repeatedly attacked by the Sri Lankan Air Force to encourage aid workers to flee, and yet Gotabaya Rajapaksa himself claimed that the Air Force could set targets; He said he surveyed the targets and planned and reviewed every air strike.”
According to the rights group, Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s ministry was in charge of approving humanitarian deliveries in the war zone and although he sat in meetings with humanitarian agencies who repeatedly warned that the civilian population was in dire need of life-saving medicine and food, They denied permission to send in supplies.