French TV crew detained

Colombo, December 25:

At least 13 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed on Christmas Eve in heavy clashes with Sri Lankan security forces in northern Sri Lanka, the defence ministry said today.

Six members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were killed in the district of Mannar yesterday while another five were killed in three separate clashes, the ministry said.

Two more Tigers were shot dead on the same day in the Jaffna peninsula along a de facto border separating rebel-held territory, the ministry said.

Elsewhere, French TV journalists Capucine Henri and C Siomon doing a documentary on the

ethnic problem, were detained in Rathgama.

The duo, representing France 24 news channel, had to spend Christmas in a police station in Rathgama in south Sri Lanka, having been detained for filming an army checkpoint and trying to take shots of a Tamil family visiting a relative in a detention camp for terror suspects. A Free Media Movement (FMM) press release quoted a police officer as saying that the arrested journalists were being questioned by the Terrorist Investigation Department.

The police also detained the Tamil family of 11 members and the driver and conductor of the mini bus in which the French journalists had arrived, the FMM said.

Till today morning, the police had not decided whether to extend their detention or produce them in a court of law.

“Filming a road block is not a crime. Making a film on a family is not a crime either,” the FMM said, calling for speedy investigation and an early release of the foreign journalists.