No Sri Lankan troops near 2006 aid worker massacre

The Sri Lankan military was not operating in the area when 17 workers for a French aid agency were gunned down execution-style in 2006, the chairman of a government commission investigating the massacre said Tuesday. Nissanka Udalagama — head of the presidential commission of inquiry charged with probing rights abuses during Sri Lanka's decades-long civil war — told The Associated Press no government forces were present during the slaying of 17 Sri Lankans who worked for Action Against Hunger in August 2006. At the time of the killings, European monitors said they were "convinced" government troops.