The Government has decided to set up special courts to clear the backlog of cases against thousands of LTTE suspects now under detention, Presidential Secretariat sources said yesterday.


"The idea is to dispose of these cases expeditiously as LTTE cadres who had surrendered have also added to the numbers", the sources said. "This means that there are thousands of cases to be cleared".


President Mahinda Rajapaksa had granted permission for the setting up of special courts on a proposal submitted by the Minister of Justice and Judicial Reforms Milinda Moragoda, a Ministry spokesman said.


A top level delegation led by Secretary to the Ministry of Justice and Judicial Reforms Suhada K. Gamlath and Attorney General Mohan Peiris, PC, are expected to visit the United States and the United Kingdom shortly to study the mechanism these two countries had implemented for the expeditious disposal of terrorism-related cases, the sources said.


The delegation is due to meet with officials of the State Department, Pentagon and the Justice and Law Departments in the US to explore how they could overcome deficiencies in the present system in practice in Sri Lanka, before visiting the UK.


At present there are hundreds of persons who had remained under detention over a long period of time for terrorism-related offences and in addition around 20,000 LTTE cadres had surrendered to the Government following the liberation of the Northern Province.