16 Aug 2011 18:42
* Ex chief justice says corruption "systematic"
* Government dismisses accusation
By Shihar Aneez
COLOMBO, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Rising levels of corruption in Sri Lanka will scare off foreign investors who have poured funds into the country since the end of its three-decade war, the nation's former chief justice said on Tuesday.
Sarath N. Silva, a well known critic of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, told an opposition forum the country's anti-graft laws were "ineffective", and accused government officials of handing out contracts without going to tender.
Sri Lanka's deputy economic development minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena dismissed the accusations on Tuesday and said there was no evidence of corruption in the island country.
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Tamil killings were just collateral damage, says Sri Lanka
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No case ... Admiral Samarasinghe.Photo: Reuters
THE top Sri Lankan diplomat in Australia has rejected a call by the Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, for the United Nations to re-examine allegations of war crimes during the bloody end to the country's three decades of civil war.
Last month a spokeswoman for Mr Rudd called on the UN Human Rights Council to revisit the claims of war crimes and to ''examine whether their original findings on the civil war can still be regarded as well-founded.'' But the Sri Lankan high commissioner, Thisara Samarasinghe, said yesterday the allegations upon which Mr Rudd based his call - including video footage from a British documentary which showed unarmed Tamils being shot dead - were ''biased and unsubstantiated''.
''That is a statement made by your honourable Foreign Minister,'' Admiral Samarasinghe said. ''He had his reasons to make that request and it will take its natural course, if anybody is interested.''
