Sri Lanka passes new laws to hold terror suspects

Colombo: Sri Lanka will continue to detain hundreds of terror suspects and outlaw the defeated rebel Tamil Tiger group despite wartime state of emergency laws being lifted, an official said yesterday.

The laws that have curbed civil and political liberties for most of the past 30 years lapsed on Tuesday and the government did not present a motion to renew them.

But President Mahinda Rajapakse approved four regulations under the Prevention of Terrorism Act that became effective Tuesday, Attorney General Mohan Peiris said.

The first two regulations will continue to proscribe the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam group and the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, which received donor funds to carry out rehabilitation work in then rebel-controlled areas and was accused of also using them to finance the rebels.

The other two regulations will allow the government to continue to hold rebel suspects and the rehabilitation of the rebels who have surrendered.

Peiris did not say for how long the suspects in custody will be detained.

Rehabilitation

The government is also holding about 3,000 ex-rebels in military-run rehabilitation centres.

About 11,000 Tamil rebels surrendered at the end of the war and nearly 8,000 have been freed after rehabilitation, the military says.

Peiris said the four regulations have been imposed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act on a "temporary basis" and that the government will shortly bring in a new Emergency Consequential Provision Bill that will include them as permanent law.

The government defeated the Tamil Tigers more than two years ago, and had been under intense international pressure to lift the wartime state of emergency laws.