A prospective court charged with investigating alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka should be led by an international chief prosecutor and contain mostly foreign judges, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday.
The call came a day after UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said Sri Lanka lacked the capacity to investigate war-era abuses on its own, because of mistrust and "justifiable suspicion" about the independence of its judicial system.
Sri Lanka's new unity government has promised drastic reforms to achieve accountability but had still been hoping to win backing for a strictly domestic probe.
While Zeid said it was vital international judges and lawyers play a role in a Sri Lankan war crimes tribunal, HRW went further in calling for the court to effectively be controlled by non-Sri Lankans.
The tribunal "should contain a majority of international judges and have an international chief prosecutor to best insulate the court from improper political and other interference," the New York-based rights group said in a statement.
There should also be independent Sri Lankan investigators, prosecutors, defence lawyers and witness protection specialists, HRW further said.
Zeid's demand for a so-called "hybrid court" was part of a long-awaited report that documented massive rights violations on both sides during Colombo's 37-year guerrilla war against ethnic Tamil independence fighters which ended in 2009.
Colombo said Wednesday that it would give "due attention" to the UN's findings, but crucially stopped short of endorsing an international role in probing alleged war crimes.