UN calls for special court to prosecute Sri Lanka war crimes from bloody 26-year conflict

Sri Lankan state forces and Tamil Tiger rebels "most likely" committed war crimes including mass killings of civilians during their conflict that should be prosecuted by a special court with international judges, the United Nations said.

Despite pledges by the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena to prosecute perpetrators, the criminal justice system was not up to the huge task alone, said the long-delayed report by the UN human rights office.

It called on Colombo to remove from office military and security personnel and any other officials "where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they were involved in human rights violations" in the 26-year war that ended in 2009.

The report named no suspects, saying it was a "human rights investigation, not a criminal investigation" and that individual prosecutions should be left for the new court.

"We hope ... that the security services will understand there must be a sort of reckoning with the past and there must be accountability," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein said.