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Sri Lanka dismisses war crimes allegations
The Guardian - August 28, 2009
Colombo – Sri Lanka has denied that its troops were involved in war crimes against Tamils, after a video surfaced allegedly showing a government soldier shooting two naked, bound and blindfolded men in the back of the head.
The footage was screened on British and Indian television and shows a man in army uniform carrying out the shootings.
Later, the camera pans to show a muddy field littered with the bodies of half a dozen men in pools of blood.
The video was obtained by a group called Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, which is believed to be made up of Sinhalese and Tamil reporters, some of whom fled the island after the military crushed the rebel Tamil Tigers.
The group claimed that the footage had been taken in January by a soldier using a mobile phone.
Human rights groups said there was no way to confirm the video, especially as in the last stages of the war earlier this year independent journalists and non-governmental agencies were not allowed access to the war zone or areas bordering it.
A spokesman for the Sri Lankan high commission in Delhi said: "We have seen many cases where unverified video and photographs have been used to undermine Sri Lanka. This appears [to be] another example."
According to the United Nations, up to 100,000 people were killed in the three decades of Sri Lanka's civil war, which ended in May.
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