Both a British Member of Parliament (MP) and Reform Party (RP) Secretary-General Kenneth Jeyaretnam wrote to the Attorney General of Singapore Lucien Wong calling for former President of Sri Lanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity under universal jurisdiction.
In two Facebook posts on Tuesday (Jul 26), Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam shared a letter from Member of Parliament for Carshalton and Wallington Elliot Colburn, as well as an open letter he had penned.
In his letter to Mr Wong, Mr Colburn the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils wrote regarding the “criminal complaint against former Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapakse, submitted to your office over the weekend by the iNGO, the Internal Truth and Justice Project”.
“We know this organisation to have conducted evidence gathering and legal research of the highest calibre on the Sri Lankan civil war – indeed after the ITJP produced a lengthy dossier on Sri Lanka’s Army commander, the United States Government designated him under 703le of the Appropriations Act for gross violations of human rights.
In addition, the final phase of the war in Sri Lanka has already been investigated thoroughly by the United Nations in 2014-15 (OISL) and it produced a report (A/HRC/30/CRP.2) that reaches an evidentiary threshold of “reasonable grounds” to say the violations were comitted; this should be sufficient reason for Singapore to launch a criminal investigation. I understand the ITJP has in its submission to you also supplied detailed linkage evidence connecting Mr Rajapakse to these incidents already investigated”, Mr Colburn wrote.
In his own open letter to AG Mr Wong, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam wrote: “The evidence against Gotabaya Rajapakse is overwhelming and the crimes of which he is accused on such a scale and of so heinous a nature that the evidentiary requirements for him to be charged are amply fulfilled”.
“As a Singaporean citizen I appreciate our multi-cultural society and even though I am of Tamil extraction, the concerns over Rajapakse’s crimes are shared by all Singaporeans. This is not a minority interest matter. However that family’s presence in Singapore is a particular affront to our Tamil community, many of whom had or have relatives in Sri Lanka who were killed or injured by Sri Lankan soldiers during the civil war, were made homeless, suffered starvation or were forced to flee the country losing what little they had”, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam wrote.
Mr Jeyarentam added that because Rajapaksa resigned as President once he arrived in Singapore, he had lost his immunity as Head of State.
“Finally I would also seek assurances that the Rajapakses are not taking advantage of our banking secrecy laws whilst visiting our island”, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam wrote.
Rajapaksa has obtained a 14-day extension of his short-term visit pass (STVP), which will mean he can stay in Singapore until Aug 11.
He was ousted from office over his country’s economic collapse and fled to the Maldives before arriving in Singapore on Jul 14.
A Sri Lankan Cabinet spokesperson on Tuesday (Jul 26) said he believed Mr Rajapaksa “may eventually consider returning” to his country, though the date of his return remains unknown. The spokesperson added that Mr Rajapaksa was not in hiding and would be treated in accordance with his status as a former president upon his return to Sri Lanka, a CNA article reported.
Last week, Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said in response to media queries that “visitors from Sri Lanka who enter Singapore for the purpose of social visits will generally be issued with a STVP with a duration of up to 30 days”.