A government panel probing alleged disappearances and murders has begun its public hearings, officials said.
Chief of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry Nissanka Udalagama said that they began public hearings Saturday.
"All this time we have had sittings in camera. This is the first time that public hearings will be taking place", Udalagama, a retired Supreme Court judge told reporters.
The Commission officials said that the January 2006 murder of six students from the minority Tamil community in the eastern town of Trincomalee was taken up Saturday in the panel's first public hearing.
The probe panel was mandated with 16 cases of rights abuses, including the killing of aid workers in the east in 2006 and the murder of the former Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in 2005 blamed on the Tamil Tigers.
The Commission was appointed by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse in November 2006.
An International Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) was also appointed to supervise the work of the Commission.
The IIGEP however on several occasions has expressed its dissatisfaction over the slowness of the Commission's work as well as its lack of transparency.
Source:Xinhua
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