Sri Lanka today suspended Brigadier Priyanka Fernando, the country's Defence Attache to the UK, after he was filmed making "throat cutting gestures" to Tamils protesting outside its High Commission in London this week.
The Foreign Ministry said that authorities have taken serious note of videos being circulated on social and web- based media of an alleged incident involving the Minister Counsellor (Defence) attached to the Sri Lanka High Commission in London behaving in an offensive manner.
"In this connection, instructions have been sent to Sri Lankas High Commissioner in London today, 6 February 2018, to suspend the Minister Counsellor (Defence) from work, with immediate effect," the ministry said in a statement.
It said authorities in Sri Lanka including the Sri Lanka Army will initiate inquiries on the incident immediately.
British lawmakers Joan Ryan and Siobhain McDonagh had called on the British Foreign Secretary to "withdraw Brigadier Priyanka Fernandos diplomatic papers and expel him" after he was filmed making "throat-cutting gestures" to Tamils outside the Sri Lankan High Commission in London on February 4.
The incident embarrassed Sri Lankan authorities who have promised reconciliation after decades of the civil war that ended in 2009, when Sri Lankan troops crushed the Tamil separatist group LTTE and killed its top leaders.
A UN panel has called for the establishment of independent international court to probe alleged war crimes committed by both the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government troops during the last stages of the nearly three-decade-long brutal civil war.
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