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Bodies of three missing Chinese crew members found

by Ranil Wijayapala 

Three bodies (of Chinese nationals) of the 17 missing crew members of the sunken fishing trawler was found yesterday morning after they washed ashore South of Point Pedro, Navy Spokesman Jayantha Perera told the Daily News yesterday.

He said the Navy has informed the Chinese Embassy in Colombo in this regard and they were due to arrive in Point Pedro to identify the bodies last afternoon.

"The bodies were in a badly decomposed state as three days have passed since the exact date of the incident", he said.

Navy personnel operating in the Northern seas in search of the 17 missing crew members further extended their search operations after they found these bodies in the Point Pedro area, the spokesman added. Meanwhile, the SLMM teams inquiring into the attack on the Chinese fishing trawler, are due to obtain a statement from the Sea Tigers in Kilinochchi, today SLMM Deputy Chief Hagrup Haukland told the Daily News.

The SLMM has already questioned the crew members of the trawler in Trincomalee and will release a report in this regard by the end of this week after completing their inquiry with the LTTE.

"The Sea Tigers on Saturday refused to answer the truce monitors inquiring into the incident but changed their minds and agreed to answer the SLMM on Monday", Haukland added. "The LTTE rejected the charges that the Sea Tigers were involved in the attack on the BOI registered Chinese fishing trawler but, we have some questions to ask from them in this regard", Haukland added.

"The rescued crew members of the Chinese fishing trawler charged that the LTTE had attacked them, but we cannot confirm it since we were not there at the scene", Haukland added. The Chinese Embassy in Colombo made a formal protest over this incident and asked the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry to have a full inquiry into the incident. The Foreign Ministry is also inquiring in to the incident.

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