Prime Minister condemns Karuna’s statement as ‘wrong and unacceptable’

Condemning the recent statement by Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias ‘Karuna Amman’ that he massacred thousands of soldiers during the war, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said the claim by the former LTTE Eastern Province commander was “wrong and unacceptable”.

The premier was responding to a question by a group of Tamil journalists at Temple Trees last week.

“You should ask him (Karuna) about his statement”, Rajapaksa said, and added that the CID is now probing the matter.

The Prime Minister said that the country as a whole took a retrograde step during the past five years of the former government.

“We ushered in an era of development to the North during our time, which neither the then government nor the TNA which supported it could not match”, he emphasized.

Asked whether he will seek the support of the TNA if a two-thirds majority could not be secured at the forthcoming parliamentary polls, Rajapaksa replied, “that’s something we should look at after the election. Supporting a government happens under diverse circumstances. When we were in the opposition, we supported the government where necessary and opposed it when the occasion demanded it. That’s an inalienable right of the opposition”.

(Source: The Island)