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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, April 09, 2003

Sri Lankan President Rejects Truce Monitor Ruling on Chinese Trawler Attack

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has rejected as bias the final report presented by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission(SLMM) on the sinking of a Chinese trawler in the northeastern seas off Mullaitivu last month, her office said on Tuesday.


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Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has rejected as bias the final report presented by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission(SLMM) on the sinking of a Chinese trawler in the northeastern seas off Mullaitivu last month, her office said on Tuesday.

In a letter to both the head of the SLMM Major General Tryggve Tellefsen and the Sri Lankan Navy Commander Vice Admiral Daya Sandagiri, Kumaratunga said "there is much evidence to raise suspicion against the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) regarding this attack."

She pointed out that the SLMM has not conducted a "full and impartial inquiry as they have failed even to mention some of the evidence, which apparently goes against the LTTE."

The SLMM has blamed the attack on the Chinese trawler on an unidentified armed group and urged both the government and LTTE rebels to identify and disarm them.

"We have not heard of any criminal elements or prates operating in the Sri Lankan seas for many centuries," she said.

The president ordered the navy commander to initiate a court of inquiry into the incident and submit to her a report within two weeks.

"The attempt to equate LTTE with the government which is a sovereign state, recommending that they jointly should take action to prevent disputes in the sea in the future implies that the LTTE has already set up a separate sovereign state," she noted.

The Chinese fishing trawler Fu Yuan Yu 225 was sunk by suspected LTTE rebels, 33 Kilometers northwest off Mullaitivu in early hours on March 20. Eight Chinese fishermen and a Sri Lankan national was rescued by another Chinese fishing trawler in the same area. Eight other Chinese fishermen remain missing.


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