Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday denied the state was holding any political prisoners, Ceylon Today reported.

Speaking to journalists during a press brief, the president said the government had no list of political prisoners to release as there were no such prisoners.

"We don't have political prisoners or a list of names", he said to a question posed by Ceylon Today.

Tamil politicians have long complained that the government is not addressing the issue of political prisoners. The TNA leadership raised this with US Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit earlier this month.

Sri Lanka’s former president, addressing a 'Victory Day' event,  said the new government should be ashamed of ‘sabotaging’ Sri Lanka’s Victory Day celebration reports, DailyFT.lk.

Photographs: DailyFT.lk

Speaking at a ‘War Heroes Memorial’ ceremony in Colombo, Mahinda Rajapaksa, said,

“The day we defeated terrorism is the day of victory. However, this day should be celebrated as the Victory Day no as Remembrance Day.”

Sri Lanka’s President reiterated that international investigators would not be allowed into the country to probe war crimes allegations, reports Shanghai Daily.

“We have had talks with the UN on investigations. As a government we have told them we will not allow foreign investigators coming to Sri Lanka. However we will take advice from the UN and conduct a domestic investigation,” said Maithripala on Wednesday.

The promotion of the accused war criminal Major General Jagath Dias to Chief of Staff of Sri Lanka's army is a major setback for peacebuilding on the island, a group of NGOs has charged, calling on the government to revoke the position.

The European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) and TRIAL (Track Impunity Always), condemned the promotion.

“The promotion of a suspected war criminal to the post of the Army Chief of Staff is a serious setback for the Sri Lankan process of reconciliation announced by President Maithripala Sirisena on taking office in January”, the NGOs said in a joint statement released on Wednesday.

Tamils in the Qatari capital Doha commemorated those who died in the closing stages of the armed conflict in 2009, Pathivu reported.

The faces of those who attended were blacked out for security reasons by the news website, as the virtually all Tamils in the Middle Eastern country are temporary workers who will return to Sri Lanka at some point.

The Tamil National People’s Front moved their planned Mullivaikal remembrance event to Vaddamarachi East after a court order banned the organisation from leading commemoration events at Mullivaikal.

The event was held at the Vembadi Murugan temple where people lit candles of remembrance and lay flowers paying respects to those that had died.