• : Only if identified beforehand can action be taken 

The Ministry of Defence said that neither the Ministry nor the country’s military has any jurisdiction over ex–military personnel or individuals who act as mercenaries in foreign countries.

Speaking to The Daily Morning yesterday (11), the spokesperson of the Ministry Colonel Nalin Herath said that legal action can only be taken only if those individuals are identified, and that otherwise, no authority has any jurisdiction over such people. Speaking further, he said that almost all these people have joined such organisations through illegal ways.

Colonel Herath made these remarks against the backdrop of reports of about three Sri Lankan ex-military personnel who fought for the Ukrainian Foreign Legion during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict reportedly killed-in-action in the battlefield during a Russian artillery attack. He further said that steps will be taken to block individuals joining as mercenaries if such people are identified. He also said that it is somewhat difficult to identify such people since they use illegal ways to join those organisations. “We can block them from joining such organisations as mercenaries if we identify them. Otherwise, we don’t have any jurisdiction to act over them once they are recruited as mercenaries. Recently, Nepal has blocked 12 individuals who attempted to flee to Russia as mercenaries. In such cases, we can act according to the law,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs President’s Counsel M.U.M. Ali Sabry is reported to have told the media that the Government could not exercise any control over any national who left the country to enter Ukraine to fight and that Sri Lanka, as a country, had made every possible effort to prevent recruits through local agents.

Last week, it was reported that three former members of the Sri Lankan military, including a person called Captain Ranish Hewage, who was reportedly the commander of the First Special Forces of The International Legion of Territorial Defence of Ukraine, or the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, were killed in a Russian military attack. Reports said that Captain Hewage and his fellow two Sri Lankan former military personnel were killed in Bakhmut, a City in Ukraine, during a rescue operation.