Navy did not violate truce - monitors

Scandinavian monitors have held that the Sri Lankan Navy had not violated the ceasefire by intercepting a Tamil guerrilla tanker which it sank in the north-eastern deep seas recently.

The monitoring body in its report released yesterday upheld the Navy's right to inspect the tanker under the UN Law of the Sea Convention.

The Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission has ruled that the LTTE had violated the same UN Convention by not flying an appropriate flag and official, visible identification on the Tanker.
The ship was sunk on June 14 by the Navy sparking off a major controversy.

The Navy is reported to have informed only President Chandrika Kumaratunga about the incident while the Defence Minister Tilak Marapana himself had not been informed of the detection of the ship.

The SLMM ruling puts paid to accusations by unidentified United National Front government Cabinet Ministers that by intercepting and sinking the LTTE Navy vessel, the Sri Lanka navy had in fact sabotaged the peace talks.

The monitors said that since neither Party informed the SLMM in due time about the incident SLMM was not in a position to monitor the event and the possibility to prevent the escalation was missed.

They said that the fate of the crew of the tanker is unknown to SLMM and they had found found no evidence that the crew was captured by the Navy.