The Sri Lanka Government has been saying that Videos showing the massacre of Tamils and the one showing two blind folded men being shot dead by the security forces is a fake and is being circulated by the sympathizers of the LTTE.
But the Video analysis proves that the Footage is original and has not been doctored.
From Tamilnet.
On August 25, 2009 a UK-based TV station (Channel 4) revealed a video showing
summary execution of blindfolded prisoners by two men in Sri Lankan military uniform. The
video panned to show 8 bodies of men already executed, and captured the systematic
execution of two more men. The 9th victim is executed by one soldier 5 seconds into the
video and the 10th victim is executed after 41 seconds by the second soldier. The two men
in military uniform spoke casually in Sinhalese, the language of almost 100% of the Sri
Lankan armed forces, as they carried out the executions.
The video was delivered to Channel 4 by a German-based exile organization, Journalists
for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS). JDS is a multiethnic exile organization recently formed
by journalists who fled Sri Lanka out to fear for their own life. The release of the video sent
shock waves through international human rights groups.
Within 24 hours of the broadcast by Channel 4, the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL)
refuted the video, calling it doctored in order to discredit the armed forces of Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, the GoSL moved quickly to secure all videotapes of the war front against the
Tamils owned by members of the military.
On August 28, 2009 the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary
Executions, Prof. Philip Alston, called for the immediate establishment of an independent
inquiry into the authenticity of a video which purportedly depicts the extrajudicial execution
of two men stripped naked with their hands tied behind their back by the Sri Lankan military
and the presumed prior execution of others. On August 26, 2009 Human Rights Watch
(HRW) issued a press release of its concern regarding the executions.
The summary executions, if proven, violate Common Article 3 to the Four Geneva
Conventions of 1949, to which Sri Lanka is a contracting party, that in subsection I(d)
prohibit, “… the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a
regularly constituted court….” Violations of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes
according to Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law.
Realizing the gravity of the military execution, the US-based non-profit group Tamils
Against Genocide (TAG) authorized Image and Sound ForensicsTM (ISF), USA to evaluate
the video for its authenticity. After analysis of the video and extensive field testing with real
ammunition (an AK-47 with 7.62×39 mm ammo) recorded by an array of different recording
devices, ISF concluded that the video recording is authentic. A second company (Firearms
& Ballistics), subcontracted by ISF, concluded that the blood flow, blood color, damage to
central nervous system and posture of falling victims represented a real event of
executions. In the same time period The Times, UK, employing an independent forensic
expert, declared that the video is indeed authentic, and concluded that the fine details such 5
as the high speed expansion of gas following a rifle shot and the brain fluid exuding from a
victim would be impossible to re-enact.
http://www.tamilnet.com/img/publish/2010/01/TAG-PPT-Extra-judicial_Executions-V3.pdf
The U.N. expert, Christof Heyns, reviewed the 5-minute, 25-second video frame by frame with a team of technical and forensic specialists to determine its authenticity, and concluded that the video suggests there is enough evidence to open a war-crimes case. Sri Lanka has claimed the video is fake.
In the video, several men lie on a muddy track, bound and motionless. The camera cuts and another man is shown being forced to sit upright by a soldier in camouflage carrying a rifle. Another soldier steps up behind the seated prisoner and shoots him in the back of the head, point blank. The prisoner slumps sideways as the camera pans across the road revealing nine bodies, most of them naked, with gunshot wounds clearly visible despite the grainy quality of the footage.
The uniformed men then force another blindfolded prisoner down into the dirt. A gunshot rings out and he, too, jerks and collapses. Later, the camera focuses on a young man, his skull blown open. Soldiers stand over the half-dressed corpse of a woman, gloating.
Heyns, a South African law professor who is also the U.N.’s independent investigator on extrajudicial killings, said the footage provides solid evidence for a prosecution case.
“It’s very rare that you have actual footage of people being killed,” the former lawyer told The Associated Press. “This is different from CCTV. This is trophy footage.”
The Sri Lankan government says the video is staged, an attempt by pro-Tamil Tiger groups to undermine its hard-won victory in the country’s 1983-2009 civil war.
“We have proven beyond any doubt that this is not authentic,” the director general of the government’s Media Center for National Security, Lakshman Hulugalla, said on Monday. The U.N. panel says it unpicked Sri Lanka’s claims and found them to be unsupported.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-05-31-sri-lanka-video-executions_n.htm
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