COLOMBO: Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa has urged parliament to quash a bill proposing that the international convention on enforced disappearances be made a part of the country’s law.

He warned that other countries could arrest Sri Lankans for crimes allegedly committed during the fight against the Tamil Tigers if the bill was adopted.

Mr Rajapaksa said: “The proposed law is an attempt to subject our armed forces to international war crimes prosecutions without using the term ‘war crimes’ and rephrasing it as ‘disappearances.”

“The use of word ‘disappearances’ makes this look like an innocuous attempt to trace missing persons. However, the purpose of this proposed legislation is not to trace missing persons but to hunt down and prosecute those who won the war against terrorism,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2017