President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Office on February 15 strongly denied a claim by former US Ambassador for War Crimes and Global Criminal Justice Stephen Rapp (2009-2015) that wartime Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa had admitted to killing Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leaders following their surrender to the Army in 2009, reports The Island. Rapp made the allegation on February 12 at an online panel discussion organised by a group of organizations targeting Sri Lanka led by the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) on Justice and rule of law in the run-up to the 46th sessions of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council. Rapp recalled a conversation with the then Defence Secretary and now President Gotabaya Rajapaksa regarding LTTE leaders who surrendered to the Army. “I remember raising this issue with defence secretary Gotabaya, now President Rajapaksa when I was there. I remember the defence secretary saying, Oh, trials, trials, you know they go on so long and people get off. I killed them, I killed them, I killed them,” Rapp said at the webinar. Rajapaksa had told him so when he met the latter in Colombo.