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II.Methodology<br />
This report is based on 180 statements from witnesses, virtually all of whom<br />
were subjected to periods of detention and repeated torture and sexual<br />
violence inside Sri Lanka. This report also includes testimony from witnesses<br />
who are security force/government insiders who provided valuable eyewitness<br />
evidence about how “white van” abductions - as well as other abduction teams<br />
and detention camps - operated. Of these witnesses, 115 were interviewed by<br />
ITJP investigators; the remaining 65 witnesses supplied medical legal reports of<br />
examining international doctors and psychiatrists who are experts in assessing<br />
allegations of torture and/or detailed witness statements recorded by solicitors<br />
or investigators.<br />
The witnesses were interviewed in five different countries with the assistance of<br />
qualified interpreters. The statements were taken in a secure environment by<br />
investigators having many years of experience of war crimes, conflict and post<br />
conflict zones, including Sri Lanka.<br />
Witness protection was paramount with the confidentiality of witnesses and<br />
their families in Sri Lanka being protected.<br />
Witnesses came through referrals as well as being sourced through networks of<br />
law firms, social workers, human rights activists, aid workers, doctors and<br />
other trusted contacts. The witnesses do not know who else testified. Some<br />
have refugee status; others had asylum applications pending at the time we<br />
met them.<br />
Witnesses have permitted us to attach as exhibits to their statements their<br />
medical legal reports, photographs, records of interviews with government<br />
agencies, medical records and other evidence corroborating their testimony.<br />
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