Court ordered the AG to charge or release the suspects within a month

A three member panel chaired by the Chief Justice Sarath N Silva ordered the Attorney General (AG) to take action after considering petitions filed by the suspects.

The counsels appearing for the suspects pointed out that the AG pledged to charge the suspects within a month, more than a month ago, but has failed to implement it.

Links with LTTE

25 Sinhala nationals; journalists, trade union activists and railway workers were arrested by the police in 2007.

They were arrested on suspicion of conspiring with the LTTE to overthrow the democratically elected government.

The Supreme Court earlier this year released 11 of them without charge.

The suspects were accused of forming an organisation called Revolutionary Liberation Army and having close links with the LTTE.

The suspects were never charged in a court of law.

'Confessions'

In a statement issued in February 2007, the Free Media Movement (FMM) said it has received complaints that the publisher of the newspaper Akuna, M.A Sisira Priyankara(38), layout designer M.L.Senaviratna(35) and another activist Nihal Serasinghe(40) were abducted from suburbs of Colombo.

They were later found in the custody of Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) of Sri Lanka police.

The then military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said the three have confessed to planning and carrying out attacks on behalf of Tamil Tigers.

At a press conference held in Colombo in February 2007, journalists were shown footages of suspects 'confessing' to have worked with the Tamil Tigers to stage attacks in the south of the country.