Colombo, Sept 1 (ANI): The Sri Lankan government has lifted strict wartime emergency laws, but has introduced new legislation that allows it to continue holding terror suspects without charge.
The BBC quoted Justice Minister Rauf Hakeem, as saying said that over 1,000 suspects detained under the draconian emergency laws were likely to be freed next month, but some would be kept in custody.
"Between 1,200 and 1,500 people in detention may get released but there are some more who need to be kept in custody," Hakeem said.
Hakeem said that people in this category were 'hard-core terrorist suspects' who were likely to be detained until charged.
Without the introduction of the new laws, they would have been freed because of the expiry of the state of emergency.
The new 'anti-terror' legislation allows the government to keep an undisclosed number of these suspects in prison, the report said.
Hakeem said that the new legislation was in addition to the existing Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
The emergency laws, which were renewed by parliament on a monthly basis, had been in place on and off since 1971, and gave the security forces sweeping powers of arrest.
The decision to end emergency laws came ahead of next month's United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, which would discuss alleged war crimes during the last stages of the ethnic conflict between government and defeated Tamil Tigers. (ANI)
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