Minister of Health and Indigenous Medicine and Cabinet Spokesperson Dr. Rajitha Senaratne on Sunday said that the government was able to prevent the UNHRC from naming 48 individuals in the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) Report.

Speaking at a function in Kaluthara, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa were to be named among 48 individuals responsible for war crimes in Sri Lanka. If they were named in this manner, they would not have been able to escape the stigma in the international stage, and could have been arrested abroad, if not in Sri Lanka, Senaratne also pointed out.

The new government was able to convince the UNHRC to refer the release of the report by six months, Senaratne also said.

Senaratne argued that President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe delayed the release of the Paranagama Commission Report since it was a ‘time bomb’. When he read out the recommendations of the report in Parliament, the whole opposition was dumbstruck, Senaratne said.