On Air Highlights
Australia rejects calls to charge Sri Lanka’s visiting president
25 October 2011
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Australia’s Attorney General has refused to give consent to a possible case of war crimes against Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa saying that visiting heads of state are protected by diplomatic immunity.
A Sri Lankan-born Australian has filed court papers seeking war crime charges against Mr Rajapaksa, who has arrived in Perth for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Australian police are separately examining whether Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Australia, a former naval admiral, also has a case to answer on war crimes.
The United Nations has alleged that both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military committed war crimes during the final stages of the war in 2009.
Presenter: Janak Rogers
Speaker: Thisara Samarasinghe, Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Australia; Julia Gillard, Australian Prime Minister; Don Rothwell, Professor of Law, Australian National University
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