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A minority Tamil political party in Sri Lanka claimed on Sunday that several prisoners had been assaulted and abused following a recent hostage drama at a prison in the northern Vavuniya town. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) met officials from foreign embassies in Sri Lanka and discussed the issue, TNA legislator Suresh Premachandran said. Tamil Tiger suspects detained at the Vavuniya prison took three prison guards hostage late last month in protest over moves to transfer some inmates to another prison. The hostage drama came to an end after several hours with the police and a commando unit of the police raiding the prison and rescuing the prison guards. One Tamil prisoner died after sustaining injuries during the rescue operation and several others were said to have been injured. Following the incident the Vavuniya prison was closed and the inmates were moved to various other prisons. Prison officials said that they had recovered some illegal items in the prison during a search operation after it was closed. Premachandran said that he had met the prisoners who had been transferred out of the Vavuniya prison and some of them claim to have been assaulted and abused both during and after the rescue operation to free the prison guards. The TNA legislators claimed that some prisoners had been assaulted while they were unconscious when the police fired teargas to free the prison guards. He said that most of the prisoners injured during the police rescue operation and after that needed urgent medical attention. The TNA had last week made a special statement in parliament calling on the authorities to free the Tamil political prisoners who have been jailed without being charged for several months or years.

Sri Lankan Tamil party claims several prisoners abused