Sri Lankan Minister D.M. Swaminathan said the Attorney General was reviewing the cases of 20 former LTTE cadres who have been detained under the government’s draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Daily Mirror quoted the minister as stating the Attorney General was deliberating on whether the former cadres would be prosecuted or cleared for “release or rehabilitation”, adding,

“There is a delay on the part of the Attorney General’s Department in clearing these cases”.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said his government would “never” sign the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) deal with India, in a speech delivered to parliament on Wednesday.

“Our government will never sign the CEPA agreement under any circumstance, and that it won’t be signed under another name,” said the prime minister. “This harmful CEPA agreement has been removed completely from our nation.”

Also see our earlier feature: Sri Lanka’s Indophobia (07 Aug 2015)

The Indian government on Tuesday reaffirmed its commitment to building 50,000 houses for internal displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Economic Times reported.

Addressing the Lok Sabha, India's minister of state for home, Kiren Rijiju said the 50,000 homes project would include the building of new homes, as well as repairing ones that were damaged. The project would be driven via agencies as well as through beneficiary owners.

"The beneficiaries of the housing project are identified through a consultative process," Mr Rijiju said.

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) said an accountability mechanism to deal with crimes committed during the final phase of the armed conflict must take place "within the framework of Sri Lanka's Constitution" in a statement released last week.

The statement, addressing the recently passed UN Human Rights Council resolution mandating an accountability mechanism for mass atrocities, acknowledged that "existing judicial and prosecutorial systems have not met the confidence of many concerned".