Recommendations A/HRC/33/51/Add.2 Measures taken/current situation Situation during the visit A/HRC/33/51/Ad d.2 Level of implementation and observations (to be completed by the WGEID) persons and to digitise them to ensure their long-term preservation. While the Office has received initial permission from the Presidential Secretariat to access sealed records at the archives, it is yet to be granted formal approval to begin the process of reviewing and digitising. (c) Establish institutional safeguards to make sure that the families of disappeared persons will not suffer any form of revictimization, including by ensuring they will not be requested to reiterate testimonies that they had already given; Paragraph 33, 54 Government In compliance with Code of Criminal Procedure, the new draft of the Protection of Victims of Crime and Witnesses Bill and the present Act, testimony by audio visual linkage is provided for from a remote location within or outside Sri Lanka as well as other safeguards. OMP See response to recommendations 79(g), 82(b). Amnesty The OMP’s mandate under section 12(b) is “to initiate an inquiry and/or investigation into the whereabouts and/or circumstances of disappearance of a missing person pursuant to a complaint made to the OMP or on the basis of information received from previously established Commissions of Inquiry, Commissions on missing persons or Commissions which have inquired into allegations relating to disappearances or missing persons…” ICJ The Working Group welcomes information on measures being taken by the OMP to avoid revictimization including ensuring families are not required to reiterate testimonies already given. Where the OMP is concerned, according to the Chairperson of the OMP, it is working on digitalising the archives and indexing the files on the missing in a manner that would ensure that information which has already been provided to State authorities in the past would not be reproduced by families of the disappeared. The OMP says that it is committed to only asking for information according to which is missing in existing documents (d) Be proactive in carrying out a proper investigation of existing mass graves and in identifying new ones; Paragraphs 43 37- 59 The Working Group notes that the excavation of Mannar mass grave site is continuing, and welcomes information according to which the OMP is developing a list of possible and suspected grave sites, including mass grave sites. It regrets that it does not appear that proactive efforts have been made to investigate other suspected mass grave sites. As these may be key to A/HRC/42/40/Add.1 Government As a part of its investigative powers, the OMP has the authority to act as an observer at excavations and exhumations of suspected grave sites and it has been observing the process of excavation of a suspected mass grave site in Mannar, in the North of Sri Lanka, since June 2018. The OMP provided financial assistance and made recommendations to secure the chain of custody of skeletal remains and to ensure the participation of the families in the process. Skeletal remains of 325 bodies were recovered during the investigation carried out for 155 days. Six samples of skeletal remains were sent to the laboratory in Florida for carbon testing on January 23, 2019. The Carbon dating report from the Beta Analytic Institute of Florida, USA revealed that the skeletal remains found in the Mannar mass grave dates back to a period between 1499 and 1719 AD