Amnesty for some Tiger rebels

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, June 30 (UPI) -- The Sri Lankan government, after claiming a crushing victory last month over Tamil Tiger rebels, may offer amnesty to some rebel suspects, an official said.

The government's legal departments are drawing up guidelines for a structured amnesty program, which would be offered only to lower level Tamil Tiger suspects and their sympathizers, the Sri Lanka Sunday Times reported.

Senior rebel suspects who are arrested would still be tried in criminal courts, the report said, quoting an official identified only as being close to the amnesty process. The official was quoted as saying the general mood in the country is one of reconciliation.

"There is no point in trying people with little evidence of wrongdoing," he said.

Human rights groups have said about 10,000 postwar detainees with suspected links to the Tigers were being held at government safe houses. Some in the government advocate a reconciliation model similar to that adopted in post-apartheid South Africa, the report said.

Separately, a BBC report quoting Sri Lanka's minister of national reconciliation said the country's military plans to set up an ethnic Tamil regiment.

Vinyagamoorthi Muralitharan, a former Tiger rebel who defected to the government in 2004, told the BBC the army chief told him recently about the Tamil regiment plan.