UN calls for war crimes court in Sri Lanka

The United Nations has called for a special court to try war crimes committed during the Sri Lankan army's long conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels, the BBC reports.

In their report, the UN human rights office accused both sides of atrocities, especially during the final stages of the war in 2009, and Sri Lanka has in turn promised a local inquiry, adding however, that it will not allow the proposed court, which would have foreign judges.

Earlier this week Sri Lanka's new government unveiled plans to set up a truth and reconciliation commission to examine war crimes allegations, including those against the military.

One UN estimate is that 40,000 Tamils died in the final army offensive. UN Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said only a special court with international magistrates and investigators would be up to the huge task of examining the alleged crimes over a nine year period up to 2011.

"Our investigation has laid bare the horrific level of violations and abuses that occurred in Sri Lanka, including indiscriminate shelling, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, harrowing accounts of torture and sexual violence, recruitment of children and other grave crimes," he said.

The previous government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa had resisted international pressure to investigate the issue.

He also called on the current Sri Lankan government to remove from office anyone if there were credible grounds to believe they had committed human rights abuses. Despite its promises to pursue accountability, the government elected last month would be reluctant to hold war-crimes trials, the BBC adds.

Other main points include unlawful killings between 2002 and 2011, allegedly by both sides, enforced disappearances affecting tens of thousands over decades, the "brutal use of torture" by security forces, in particular during the immediate aftermath of the conflict, extensive sexual violence against detainees by the security forces "with men as likely to be victims as women" as well as forced recruitment of adults and children by the rebels, particularly towards the end of the conflict

The report said forced recruitment by the rebels would, if proven in court, be a war crime and that the denial of humanitarian assistance - which it said the government might be guilty of - could also constitute a war crime.

The 26-year war left at least 100,000 people dead, but there are still no confirmed figures for tens of thousands of civilian deaths in the last months of battle. One investigation said it was possible up to 40,000 people had been killed in the final five months alone, while others suggest the number of deaths could be even higher.