ITJP submits over 60 sanction requests against Sri Lankan officials

The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) has submitted more than 60 sanctions and visa ban requests against Sri Lankan public and security officials to date for human rights and economic crimes in Sri Lanka and multiple universal jurisdiction cases.

These have been sent to the Governments of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and the EU as well as the UN. 

The submissions cover gross violations of human rights and significant corruption in respect of the Sri Lankan army, navy, air force, police and intelligence officials, Tamil paramilitaries, as well as civil servants including judges and former ministers, the ITJP said.

The gross human rights violations and atrocity crimes include extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and various forms of sexual violence, perpetrated both during and after the civil war. 

These range from attacks against civilians that may amount to serious international crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In addition, the focus is on significant corruption which is structurally embedded in Sri Lankan governance and public institutions which encompasses undue interference with judicial processes that further sets back accountability efforts for underlying human rights violations, as well as abuses of power. In this regard, submissions look at state-owned enterprises and misappropriation of public funds that resulted in huge financial losses for the entire country, and contributed to the economic crisis in the country. 

Furthermore, visa ban requests have been made for a number of identified former Indian Peacekeeping Force officers alleged to have been complicit in gross human rights violations and mass atrocity crimes, in the period when deployed in Sri Lanka in the late eighties.  

“In the absence of any criminal accountability to date, it is vital to continue to document past and current crimes, analyse the evidence and use every channel to keep on asserting the truth. 

We hope the new government in the UK will sanction Sri Lankans on Human Rights Day this year (10 December) for their alleged role in war crimes during the end of the country’s conflict”, said Yasmin Sooka, executive director of the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP).  

The ITJP has submitted lengthy sanctions dossiers on General Shavendra Silva1 in 20211 and General Jagath Jayasuriya in 20221 to the UK Government, as well as sending dossiers to the Governments of Canada, Australia and the EU. 

In 2020, Shavendra Silva was publicly designated in the US under 7031c of the Appropriations Act for his role in gross human rights violations1 and it is believed Jagath Jayasuriya has also been denied US visas though not publicly named. 

Another accountability tool that the ITJP has utilised has been filing universal jurisdictions for war crimes:  in 2017 the ITJP filed universal jurisdiction cases for war crimes against Jayasuriya in Brazil and Chile1 based on his role in one of the country’s most notorious army garrisons known as Joseph Camp1. 

This was followed up with a criminal complaint in Australia that the federal police failed to investigate1. A Torture Victim Protection Act case was filed in the US against Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019 and a criminal complaint submitted in Singapore in 2022. 

A further universal jurisdiction case is under investigation in an undisclosed jurisdiction against a retired senior member of the Sri Lankan Army.  

Additionally, two linked war crimes cases involving suspects from a Sri Lankan Tamil paramilitary group aligned to the military were referred to the UK’s Metropolitan Police which made two arrests and recently put out a public appeal for information.