UNITED NATIONS CANNOT VOUCH FOR THE AUTHENTICITY OF CHANNEL 4 VIDEO
Posted on September 3rd, 2009
By Walter Jayawardhana
United Nations Deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said the UN cannot vouch for the authenticity regarding the Channel 4 (Britain) video allegedly showing the extrajudicial execution of a prisoner in Sri Lanka.
The statement was made after United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon met Sri LankaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights.
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon met Samarasinghe to discuss about Internally Displaced Persons in the government run welfare relief camps in Northern Sri Lanka for the displaced of the war.
The video about the extrajudicial killing in execution style is alleged to have been made by the propaganda unit of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last January and released to the Channel 4 news few weeks ago through a third party.
The Sri Lanka government has called the video a fake and categorically denied the depicted killing ever took place at the hands of the Sri Lankan troops.
Channel 4 itself said in its broadcast that they did not vouch for its authenticity.
But television in Paris and New York are changing the rules of journalism to broadcast it.