The United Nations asked the government of Sri Lanka on Friday to immediately repatriate the commander of its 200-strong contingent assigned to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Mali following a review of his human rights background.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced Friday that the request for Lt. Col. Kalana Amunupure to leave the troubled West African nation was made "based on recently received information." He gave no details.
A report in The Guardian newspaper in July quoted a confidential report that claimed the Sri Lanka commander in Mali — who was not named — is alleged to have committed war crimes during the finale of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels that ended in 2009.
It said the report was produced by the South-Africa based International Truth and Justice Project, and also cited other Sri Lankans taking part in U.N. peacekeeping operations.
Sri Lanka's U.N. Mission said the ambassador was not available to comment on the U.N. decision.
The Sri Lanka Army called the deployment to Mali "one more feather in its cap" when it was set to start sending the 200-strong Combat Convoy Company to serve in the U.N. peacekeeping mission last November. It said Sri Lankan troops were also participating in other U.N. peacekeeping missions including in Lebanon and South Sudan.
Sri Lanka has faced years of criticism for dismissing calls by the United Nations and foreign governments for an independent inquiry into alleged war crimes and other abuses committed by both sides during the civil war.
The Tamil Tiger rebels were designated a terrorist organization after a wave of suicide bombings, and were also accused of using child soldiers and killing Tamil political rivals.
The International Truth and Justice Project said in a press release in April that it sent the U.N. a confidential list of more than 50 names of Sri Lankan paramilitary police from a Special Task Force that should be barred from participating in U.N. peacekeeping missions because they were either alleged perpetrators or frontline combatants at the end of the war when security force units reportedly committed systematic crimes.
The Project said its investigators have been documenting violations of international humanitarian and human rights law since 2013 and "now have the largest database of sworn testimony regarding the final war and its aftermath held outside Sri Lanka."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for an American believed to be held by the Taliban for nearly two years are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment.
Ryan Corbett was abducted Aug. 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there a year earlier. He arrived on a valid 12-month visa to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he led aimed at promoting Afghanistan's private sector through consulting services and lending.
Corbett has since been shuttled between multiple prisons, though his lawyers say he has not been seen since last December by anyone other than the people with whom he was detained.
In a petition sent Thursday, lawyers for Corbett say that he's been threatened with physical violence and torture and has been malnourished and deprived of medical care. He's been held in solitary confinement, including in a basement cell with almost no sunlight and exercise, and his physical and mental health have significantly deteriorated, the lawyers say.
Corbett has been able to speak with his family by phone five times since his arrest, including last month. His family has not been able to see him — his only visits have been two check-ins from a third-party government — and their characterizations of his mistreatment are based on accounts from recently released prisoners who were with him and his openly dispirited tone in conversations.
“During Mr. Corbett’s most recent call with his wife and children, Mr. Corbett indicated that the mental torture and anguish have caused him to lose all hope,” said the petition, signed by the Corbett family attorneys, Ryan Fayhee and Kate Gibson.
The petition is addressed to Alice Edwards, an independent human rights investigator and the special rapporteur for torture in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the U.N. It asks Edwards, who was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, to “urgently reach out to the Taliban to secure Mr. Corbett’s immediate release and freedom from torture, as guaranteed by international law.”
"This situation is just dragging on, and I’m increasingly concerned and taking steps that I hope will make a difference and help the situation — just increasingly concerned and panicking about Ryan’s deteriorating health and physical and mental health," Corbett's wife, Anna, said in an interview. “And that was leading me to take this next step.”
The U.S. government is separately working to get Corbett home and has designated him as wrongfully detained. A State Department spokesman told reporters last month that officials had continually pressed for Corbett's release and were “using every lever we can to try to bring Ryan and these other wrongfully detained Americans home from Afghanistan."
A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry in Afghanistan said this week that it had no knowledge of Corbett's case.
Corbett, of Dansville, New York, first visited Afghanistan in 2006 and relocated there with his family in 2010, supervising several non-governmental organizations.
The family was forced to leave Afghanistan in August 2021 when the Taliban captured Kabul, but he returned the following January so that he could renew his business visa. Given the instability on the ground, the family discussed the trip and “we were all pretty nervous,” Corbett's wife said.
But after that first uneventful trip, he returned to the country in August 2022 to train and pay his staff and resume a business venture that involved consulting services, microfinance lending and evaluating international development projects.
While on a trip to the northern Jawzjan province, Corbett and a Western colleague were confronted by armed members of the Taliban and were taken first to a police station and later to an underground prison.
Anna Corbett said that when she learned her husband had been taken to a police station, she got “really scared” but that he was optimistic the situation would be quickly resolved.
That, however, did not happen, and Anna Corbett, who has three teenage children and makes regular trips to Washington, said she's trying to advocate as forcefully as she can while not letting “anxiety take over.”
“I feel like it’s the uncertainty of all of it that just is so difficult because you just don’t know what’s going to come at you — what call, what news," she said. "And I’m worried about Ryan and the effect of the trauma on him and then also on my kids, just what they’re experiencing. I've tried to protect them the best I could, but this is so difficult.”
Associated Press writer Riazat Butt in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
This family photo shows Ryan Corbett holding rabbits with his daughter Miriam and son Caleb in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2020. Lawyers for Corbett, believed held by the Taliban for nearly two years, are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment. Corbett was abducted on August 10, 2022 after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there one year earlier, on a valid 12-month business visa to pay and train staff. (AP Photo/Anna Corbett)
