Sri Lanka's plan to send 217 Tamil political detainees to rehabilitation prior to release has run into legal difficulties. The New Indian Express reported.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesperson M.A.Sumanthiran, said on the 17th of this month that the government would send the first batch of detainees for rehabilitation in ten days. But according to the Minister of National Dialogue Mano Ganeshan, there may be a delay on as some detainees have multiple cases against them and they would only be eligible for rehabilitation for one case, he explained.

“We are discussing this issue with the Attorney General to find a way out. In a week or so, it may be sorted out,” Mr Ganeshan told Express on Tuesday.

Spokesperson of the Tamil Civil Society Forum Kumaravadivel Guruparan said in a Facebook post that it may not be possible to send the detainees for rehabilitation as they are not “surrendees”. They were captured or arrested against their will, and as such, do not come under the law governing rehabilitation and release of LTTE cadres, which says that rehabilitation is open only to “surrendees”.

Mr Guruparan points out that in 2011, the Rajapaksa government sent 12,000 LTTE cadres for a 12 month rehabilitation course and released them after that, under a freshly made provision in the Prevention of Terrorism Act. As per the new Prevention of Terrorism (Care and Rehabilitation) Regulations No: 5 of 2011, only those who had “voluntarily surrendered” to the police or the armed forces or a public official, and had stated his intention to surrender in writing, are eligible to be considered for rehabilitation.

But in the case of the 217 detained LTTE suspects currently being considered for rehabilitation, nobody had “voluntarily surrendered to the authorities,” MrGuruparan points out, so it appears that the regulations will have to be changed to enable these to undergo rehabilitation.

According to the Express, Tamil lawyers said that if a prisoner says he has “surrendered”, it means he is accepting the charge that he had worked for the LTTE, when actually they maintained that they had not worked for the LTTE.

The lawyers also say that even after rehabilitation and release, an ex-detainee could be hounded and arrested. This is the reason why the prisoners have been seeking a “Presidential Amnesty” which will close the cases against them irrevocably. 

The hunger strike was designed to be against that and the fast was only called off only when the government put forward the Rehabilitation and Release Plan. In mid-November, 85 of the 217 detainees had sought rehabilitation in writing.