Sri Lankan commission to review war crime video

The Sri Lankan commission looking into the civil strife with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam will examine the documentary aired by Britain's Channel 4 that showed gruesome pictures of alleged war crimes during the last weeks of the war.

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission said it has already been examining documentary evidence related to the war period, and the Channel 4 video will be part of it.

"We will review the film and subject it to our examining. We have been similarly examining documentary evidence such as photographs as part of our routine procedure from time to time including Channel 4's previous video," Lakshman Wickramasinghe, the media spokesman for LLRC said. "So this is not a special treatment of the Channel 4 video," he added.

The government's response to the British channel's airing of the documentary on Tuesday was that the footage was a mere collection of previously aired unverified evidence put together by vested interests against the Sri Lankan government.

"If the allegations levelled by Channel 4 or any other party are found to be genuine, the LLRC will take due note of all such cases and remedial measures will be taken by way of legal sanctions," a government statement said.

While dismissing the content the government said the LLRC would go into it to check its authenticity.

The Channel 4's airing of the documentary came in the backdrop of April's release of a report by United Nations Secretary General's experts panel which accused both the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE of human rights violations.

The government vehemently denies charges of war crimes against its troops.