We are aware that an open letter is circulating that contains a number of false accusations. We have written to the recipients of that letter as follows:
Dear Sir/Madam,
We have become aware that you were the recipient of a letter from “a concerned group of Sri Lankan foreign policy observers” calling for the release of a number of reports relating to the final stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war. That letter is available here.
That letter contains a number of falsehoods about the Sri Lanka Campaign and Yasmin Sooka.
The allegation that Yasmin Sooka orchestrated the complaint against Sir Desmond de Silva is entirely false and has been known to be false for some time. When this allegation first surfaced in the Daily Mirror last month I wrote to them demanding the withdrawal of the allegation and that they publish a correction. That letter is available publicly here.
As it states in that letter, Yasmin Sooka was in no way involved in our decision to bring a complaint against Sir Desmond de Silva and played no part in making the complaint. Indeed she would not even have been aware that we had done so until reading about it in the press.
The allegation that Yasmin Sooka is the executive director of the SLC is also false, demonstrably so. I (Fred Carver) am the Executive Director (although I use the title Campaign Director). Yasmin Sooka is merely one of our 23 advisors; as I explained to the Daily Mirror as Yasmin Sooka has been engaged in other matters of late we have not had occasion or opportunity to call on her advice in some time. You can read about our structure in more detail here.
I can also confirm that the Sri Lanka Campaign was in no way involved with the creation or publication of the letter of the 4th of August mentioned in the letter. The reason that the letter of the 4th of August does not mention our name is that this letter was nothing to do with us!
At no point was there any attempt to hide the fact that the Sri Lanka Campaign were making the complaint against Sir Desmond De Silva. Indeed that information would have been readily available from us, from Sir Desmond, and from the first sentence of the article written about the complaint in the Daily FT on the 5th of August.
However we do feel that in the interests of due process we should refrain from commenting on an ongoing investigation and that is why we have limited our comments and our activities on the complaint itself to confirming that we have lodged the complaint.
Kind regards,
Fred Carver