The Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,

Referring to the case of Mr. D.M. Dassanayake, Minister of Nation-Building and a member of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, who was assassinated on 8 January 2008, as outlined in the report of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians (CL/188/13(b)-R.1), and to the resolution adopted at its 187th session (October 2010); referring also to the report on the mission to Sri Lanka carried out by the Committee in February 2008 (CL/183/12(b)-R.2),

Taking into account the information which Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, Special Envoy of the President of Sri Lanka for Human Rights, provided to the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians at the hearing held during the 124th IPU Assembly,

Recalling the following: Mr. D.M. Dassanayake was killed on 8 January 2008, along with a bodyguard, in a roadside Claymore mine attack in the town of Ja-Ela, north of Colombo, while on his way to parliament; according to information provided in October 2009, the arrest of a key Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suspect operating in Colombo led to the arrest of other suspects, whose revelations resulted in the recovery of the remote control device used to detonate the explosive device triggering the explosion that killed Mr. Dassanayake; the investigation has since been completed and the relevant file was to be forwarded to the Attorney General for filing of an indictment and the case was to be called in court on 14 October 2009; the police report of March 2010 reiterated this information, adding the name of the three suspects (Malcom Tyrone, Sundara Sathies, W.D. Hyacinth),

Considering that, according to the information provided by Minister Samarasinghe at the hearing held during the 124th IPU Assembly, out of the three suspects, indictment was issued on W.D. Hyacinth and sent by the Attorney General on 31 March 2011 to the Negombo High Court, and that charges of conspiracy and abetment to murder are being finalized against the other two suspects,

1. Thanks the authorities and, in particular, Minister Samarasinghe for the consistent cooperation extended to the Committee and for the information provided;

2. Notes that the case is now proceeding towards the trial stage, and wishes to be kept informed of the proceedings;

3. Requests the Secretary General to inform the authorities and source accordingly and requests the Committee to report to it at its next session, to be held on the occasion of the 125th IPU Assembly (October 2011).

Note: you can download a complete electronic version of the brochure "Results of the 124th IPU Assembly and related meetings" in PDF format (file size 672 Kb approximately). This version requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download free of charge.

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