HRW says the SL government is attempting to "bedazzle" world

The group said the government's gross mishandling of the investigation into the killing of local employees of the French aid agency, Action Against Hunger, had demonstrated the need for an international inquiry.

The aid workers were killed in the north-eastern Sri Lakan town, in Trincomalee district, on 04 August 2006.

“For three years, the Rajapaksa government has put on an elaborate song and dance to bedazzle the international community into believing justice is being done,” HRW legal and policy director James Ross was quoted in the statment.

Letters distributed

He added: "It is time the UN and concerned governments say ‘the show is over’ and put into place a serious international inquiry".

For three years, the Rajapaksa government has put on an elaborate song and dance to bedazzle the international community into believing justice is being done HRW legal and policy director James Ross

At the time of the killings, European truce monitors said they believed troops were involved, but the government's own inquiry said the military was not responsible.

All but one of the aid workers were ethnic Tamils. The military was engaged in heavy fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels in the region at the time.

Days after the findings of the presidential inquiry, the relatives of the victims were given letters by the government to sign seeking more money from ACF.

The authorities deny the letters exist, but the BBC has seen copies of them.

UTHR report

A number of relatives said they did not want to sign the government's letters.

"Money will not help us. We cannot get our relatives back anyway," one family member of the victims told BBC Sinhala service, Sandeshaya.

Rights group University Teachers for Human Rights – Jaffna (UTHR –J), a group that published details reports on the incident, has criticized the findings of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI).

“The course of the ACF inquiry traces growing state hostility to legal norms, arbitrariness in the use of police powers, and the politicisation of the Attorney General’s office to the point of complicity in crime,” the latest UTHR report said.