UN investigator on killings urges move on Sri Lanka

GENEVA, Sep 19 (Reuters) A United Nations investigator today said that ''political killings'' continued in Sri Lanka and called for international human rights monitors to be sent to the island.

Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions, also declared that his multiple requests to visit Iran to probe alleged executions of juvenile offenders had ''led nowhere''.

He was addressing the UN Human Rights Council, which is holding a three-week session to examine abuses worldwide including in Sri Lanka, where the military and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) resumed fighting this year.

''Political killings continue apace, while the (Sri Lankan) government and the LTTE, as well as other military groups, deny all responsibility and blame the other side,'' Alston told the 47-member state forum.

''Many people are killed for the purpose of keeping them from speaking freely, assembling freely, participating in politics, and so on,'' he added.

The latest mass killings came at the weekend. Sri Lanka's military yesterday accused Tamil Tiger rebels of hacking 10 Muslim labourers to death in the east, but angry local residents blamed security forces.

Some 700 civilians had been killed already this year in Sri Lanka and the time had come to launch a fully fledged international human rights monitoring mechanism, according to Alston, who conducted a mission to the country in late 2005.

''This mission must conduct in-depth investigations throughout the country, report publicly on its findings and report to a neutral body,'' he said.

Yesterday, Sri Lanka's delegation told the talks its military response was defensive, due to ''clear and present danger posed by the LTTE to strategic critical infrastructure''.

It said that it was committed to protecting human rights ''while combatting terrorism''.

On Iran, Alston said that despite the Islamic government announcing a ''standing invitation'' for all UN human rights investigators to visit, his repeated requests and talks with Iranian officials had been fruitless.

''My mandate from this Council requires me to respond to a series of credible reports of the execution of juvenile offenders,'' said Alston, an Australian lawyer who teaches at New York University.

''If such incidents have occurred they would constitute clear and troubling violations of Iran's treaty obligations,'' he said, referring to international human rights law.

Alston visited Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Lebanon, Israel and Nigeria in the past year.

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