GENEVA: A UN human rights expert says gruesome new footage from the final days of Sri Lanka's civil war is authentic and proves war crimes took place there, challenging the government's claim that videos showing the army executing captured rebels in May 2009 are faked. The UN's independent investigator on extrajudicial killings says the five-minute video obtained by Britain's Channel 4 corroborates an earlier, shorter video showing blindfolded, naked men being shot dead at close range. “What is reflected in the extended video are crimes of the highest order – definitive war crimes,” the UN investigator, South African law professor Christof Heyns, said in a report released Monday to the global body's Human Rights Council. Heyns said he reviewed the footage showing the apparent execution of unarmed men and women with technical and forensic experts. “The overall conclusion reached by the experts is that the video is authentic and the events reflected in the video footage occurred as depicted,” he told the council. Sri Lanka's government has maintained that the video is not real. “We don't accept it. We have proven beyond any doubt that this is not authentic,” said Lakshman Hulugalla, director general of the government's Media Center for National Security. The UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, told the council Monday at the opening of its three-week meeting that it should “reflect on the new information” and reconsider the resolution.
