Dinesh Gunawardena
All LTTE detainees to be freed: Sri Lankan PM
Colombo: All remaining Tamil Tiger detainees will be released and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) will be repealed, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said in remarks published on Saturday.
The Island newspaper quoted the Prime Minister as telling Parliament that Sri Lanka will fulfill all the pledges made to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
These were the two main demands made by the UNHRC, he said, referring to the LTTE prisoners and the PTA.
President Wickremesinghe will provide the necessary guidance in releasing prisoners who belonged to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist group which fought a bitter war for a quarter century before it was militarily crushed in 2009.
These LTTE detainees "had been languishing in prisons for a long time", Gunawardena said.
“The draft bill to repeal the PTA has been approved by the Cabinet. It will be presented to Parliament soon,” he said.
(With UNI inputs)
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