U.N. war crimes panel overstepped its mandate - Sri Lanka

(Reuters) - A panel advising the U.N. secretary-general on accountability for the bloody end of Sri Lanka’s war overstepped its mandate by producing an investigative report concluding there are “credible allegations” of war crimes, Sri Lanka said on Thursday.

The panel, whose report has been leaked to newspapers on the Indian Ocean island, primarily blames the government for what it says were tens of thousands of civilian casualties, and urged the prosecution of those responsible for rights violations.

The report focuses on the final months of Sri Lanka’s quarter-century war with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which ended with the annihilation of the Tiger leadership and government victory in May 2009.

Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris said the panel was appointed strictly to advise U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and not to investigate or become a fact-finding body.

“So how can this panel transform itself into an investigative panel? They must confine themselves to the limit of their mandate,” Peiris told reporters, adding that Sri Lanka had strongly urged Ban not to formally publish the report. The report by the panel appointed by Ban represents the biggest pressure brought to bear on the government since the end of the war, when Western governments pushed in vain for a ceasefire to protect civilians.

Sri Lanka’s government has consistently denied allegations that it targeted civilians. It has acknowledged that some were killed as troops advanced on an ever-shrinking patch of land on the northeastern coast of the island.