Briefing the media here after a four-day tour of Sri Lanka on Friday, Emmerson said as recently as October 2016, 80 cases of torture of PTA detainees were reported, and that a senior judge told him that 90 percent of the PTA cases that came to him were about torture in custody. This, he emphasised, is unacceptable because confessions at the police investigations stage are routinely extracted by torture. For any anti-terrorism law to be in conformity with international standards, the admissibility of confessions made to the police should be removed. “The government thus far done almost nothing to hold to account those members of the armed forces and security services who committed gross human rights violations during and since the conflict. So far only 71 police officers have been proceeded against for torture,” he said.

Source: bd News24 July 14, 2017 15:22 UTC