Five Sri Lankan doctors who witnessed the bloody climax of the country's civil war in May and made claims of mass civilian deaths as a result of government shelling have recanted much of their testimony.
The men, who have been in police custody for nearly two months for allegedly spreading Tamil Tiger propaganda, were presented by officials at a press conference in Colombo, where they said the rebels had forced them to exaggerate the number of civilian deaths.
The doctors said that only up to 750 civilians were killed between January and mid-May in the final battles of the war, a number far below the estimated 7,000 released by the United Nations.
An investigation by The Times uncovered evidence that more than 20,000 civilians were killed in the final stages of the war — mostly by the Army.
link: Scepticism as Sri Lankan doctors backtrack over mass deaths by army shelling - Times Online
0 comments:
Post a Comment