COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s military yesterday defended its soldiers who have been accused of massacring prisoners during a jail riot last week, saying the inmates were heavily armed and posed a danger to the public.
Sri Lanka’s main opposition party has accused security forces of killing in cold blood after the deaths of 27 inmates in maximum-security Welikada jail in the capital Colombo during a riot on Friday and Saturday morning.
“I reject these allegations completely,” military spokesman Ruwan Wanigasooriya said, adding that there was “stiff resistance” from prisoners armed with assault rifles looted from the prison armoury.
“Our objective was not to go in and (fire) burst around. If we did not go in, there was a risk of 4,000 convicts escaping and posing a bigger danger,” he added.
The army was deployed at the request of the police in line with legal provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, Wanigasooriya said, rejecting opposition claims that the military had no authority to intervene.
The main opposition United National Party on Sunday called for a parliamentary investigation into the prison riot, the worst in nearly thirty years.
The opposition said 16 convicts were killed on late Friday evening while 11 more had been gunned down early on Saturday after troops were called in.
AFP
