AL LKA 1/2025.
A citable anchor page. On 21 July 2025, four UN Special Procedures mandate-holders issued Joint Allegation Letter AL LKA 1/2025 to the Government of Sri Lanka. Its Chemmani record is one of the load-bearing Tier-A anchors for this Desk. This page summarises what the letter says on Chemmani, so citations elsewhere on the Institute — and on external briefings — can point to a stable surface.
Who signed the letter.
- 01Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence (Bernard Duhaime)
- 02Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID)
- 03Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
- 04Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers
The letter also covers three other mandates (truth, enforced disappearances, and judicial independence in the wider Sri Lanka context). This page confines itself to the Chemmani record.
The 1999 record, verbatim.
- ·In the 1999 exhumation, 15 bodies were recovered.
- ·2 were identified by relatives from clothing.
- ·The remains were never returned to the families.
- ·In the current phase, 41 bone samples were confirmed for analysis (Feb 2025).
- ·Bone samples were routed to the University of Ruhuna laboratory, Galle District — not to Glasgow, contrary to some second-hand accounts.
The Institute reproduces these points as summaries anchored to the letter's public text on the OHCHR Communications Portal. TLTE does not paraphrase the letter's legal characterisations; readers who need the operative language should consult the letter directly at the source URL above.
The 1999 gap is now on the UN record.
Before AL LKA 1/2025, the fact that the 1999 exhumation had identified two victims by clothing but never returned their remains to their families lived in Tamil-language reporting and diaspora casework. It is now on a UN Special Procedures Joint Allegation Letter, signed by four mandate-holders. That is a qualitative change in the international record.
Chemmani's Phase 3 excavations are producing a Tier-A record of scale (over 410 sets of remains identified, over 400 exhumed as of end-June 2026). AL LKA 1/2025 supplies the Tier-A record of conduct — what the State did with the earlier remains, and what it has not yet done for the current ones.
The Foreign Secretary's on-the-record confirmation that Sri Lanka is not an ICC state party, and what routes remain open.
MP letter, OHCHR submission body, embassy roundtable brief, rebuilt around AL LKA 1/2025 and the FAC record.