President's Counsel appointed Chairman of Office of Missing Persons

COLOMBO (News 1st) - President's Counsel, Saliya Pieris, has been appointed Chairman of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP). President Maithripala Sirisena handed over the appointment letters to the Commissioners of the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) at the Presidential Secretariat, yesterday. The OMP law was passed in Parliament in August 2016, and will now be operational. The OMP is tasked with determining the status of all missing persons in Sri Lanka, and is the first pillar of the transitional justice mechanisms under design and implementation. The Commissioners were appointed for a period of three years.

The Commissioners are:

• Saliya Pieris, PC – Chairman/ OMP

• Jayatheepa Punniyamoorthy – Member/ OMP

• Major General (Rtd.) Mohanti Antonette Peiris – Member/ OMP

• Dr. Sriyani Nimalka Fernando – Member/ OMP

• Mirak Raheem – Member/ OMP

• Somasiri K. Liyanage – Member/ OMP

• Kanapathipillai Venthan – Member/ OMP

Sri Lanka’s National Budget for 2018, also made an allocation of Rs 1.3 billion to establish the OMP. The Commissioners were selected in an open and competitive process conducted by the Constitutional Council of Sri Lanka, and were nominated for appointment to President. The OMP will be an independent body reporting to Sri Lanka’s Parliament, and is expected to bring a degree of closure to surviving family members of Sri Lanka’s internal conflicts and will set the stage for sustainable reparations for victims and their families.