Army denies LTTE allegations

Manjula Fernando

COLOMBO: Denying LTTE allegations that the deaths of French Charity, Contre la Faim, employees were Army linked, Acting Military Spokesman Brigadier Athula Jayawardena said the JMO was conducting the postmortems to ascertain the time of the deaths.

"Initial investigations indicate the deaths to have occurred before the military re-captured the town from the LTTE clutches," Brig. Jayawardena said adding they were awaiting JMO reports to verify this. "The LTTE were occupying the Muttur town area from the morning of August 2 to August 4 evening.

The military crushed the LTTE pockets controlling the town and re-captured the area by August 4 evening. "We believe the deaths to have occurred before this period," the Brigadier said adding that the LTTE was trying to pin them on this. There were no eyewitness accounts to the NGO incident whereas in Galkanda close to the 64th mile post fleeing Muslims claimed they saw LTTE killing innocent civilians accused of aiding the military.

Nearly 100 bodies of civilians are said to be lying in the area unable to be recovered due to still continuing LTTE artillery fire.

The seventeen bodies of the employees who were found dead inside their office in Muttur town were transported to Trincomalee hospital for the JMO reports.

The Muttur Police is investigating the deaths, which was reported to have been caused by short range gun fire.