Colombo, Sri Lanka:
A Sri Lankan magistrate ordered the arrest of 22 police officers Wednesday following an outcry over footage showing officers assaulting revellers at a party where one man died after allegedly being thrown through a window.
Magistrate Prasanna Fernando called for the immediate arrest of two senior officers and other lower-ranking police personnel as a government minister apologised to parliament over his initial version of events.
Graphic footage captured on closed-circuit television, which has been widely circulated on social media, showed a group of officers dragging partygoers out onto the street and then thrashing them with their batons in the southern town of Embilipitiya earlier this month.
Police had initially claimed they came under attack from partygoers. But after a flood of witnesses came forward and the CCTV footage emerged, national police chief N. K. Illangakoon ordered an investigation into the incident which found that officers had fabricated evidence.
Many witnesses said the police went on the rampage after party organisers refused to give them alcohol, describing how the 29-year-old man who died had been assaulted and then pushed through a second-floor window.
Medical reports showed the victim had over 180 lacerations after being dragged over glass shards from a number of windows which were smashed.
Amid a growing public outcry, Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayake told lawmakers he was retracting an earlier report which claimed that the victim had jumped though a glass door to escape from police.
"It has come to light that the information I gave the House earlier about this incident was wrong," the minister said, adding that it appeared that police had lied.
The incident is an embarrassment for the government of President Maithripala Sirisena, which came to power on a promise of improving Sri Lanka's dismal human rights record.
Last month the independent Human Rights Commission ruled that police had violated international humanitarian law by assaulting students demonstrating in the capital.
Police are also implicated in extrajudicial killings under former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse who was defeated by Sirisena at elections last January.
Magistrate Prasanna Fernando called for the immediate arrest of two senior officers and other lower-ranking police personnel as a government minister apologised to parliament over his initial version of events.
Graphic footage captured on closed-circuit television, which has been widely circulated on social media, showed a group of officers dragging partygoers out onto the street and then thrashing them with their batons in the southern town of Embilipitiya earlier this month.
Police had initially claimed they came under attack from partygoers. But after a flood of witnesses came forward and the CCTV footage emerged, national police chief N. K. Illangakoon ordered an investigation into the incident which found that officers had fabricated evidence.
Many witnesses said the police went on the rampage after party organisers refused to give them alcohol, describing how the 29-year-old man who died had been assaulted and then pushed through a second-floor window.
Medical reports showed the victim had over 180 lacerations after being dragged over glass shards from a number of windows which were smashed.
Amid a growing public outcry, Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayake told lawmakers he was retracting an earlier report which claimed that the victim had jumped though a glass door to escape from police.
"It has come to light that the information I gave the House earlier about this incident was wrong," the minister said, adding that it appeared that police had lied.
The incident is an embarrassment for the government of President Maithripala Sirisena, which came to power on a promise of improving Sri Lanka's dismal human rights record.
Last month the independent Human Rights Commission ruled that police had violated international humanitarian law by assaulting students demonstrating in the capital.
Police are also implicated in extrajudicial killings under former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse who was defeated by Sirisena at elections last January.
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