The term of the Special Committee set up by the Sri Lankan President to study and formulate recommendations for his consideration on 170 allegations of human rights violation during the last phase of the Eelam war IV as recounted in the US State Department Report to Congress has been extended by four months. A Presidential Secretariat press release said that the extension to was given following a request by the Committee of difficulties in completing the study in the given time. The Committee with legal experts had to submit their recommendations by 31st December 2009.The Committee will now submit its recommendation by the end of April 2010.The recent letter from Mr. Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra- judicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions seeking explanation from the Sri Lankan Government on the alleged controversy surrounding the death of senior Tiger cadres and their leaders in the final phases of Eelam War IV has now been referred to the Committee for advice on the cause of action to be taken on the issues.The UN envoy’s missive is based on the controversial interview by the former Army Chief Sarath Fonseka to a local weekly. Sarath Fonseka is also the common candidate of the opposition parties in the forthcoming presidential pollsThe Special committee was appointed to study the 68 page US State Department report containing details of alleged ‘atrocities’ by both the military and Tigers during the final stages of the war in May and is prepared by the War Crimes office in the State Department. It lists incidents between May 2 and 18 that are based mostly on internal reports to Washington from the US Embassy in Colombo, satellite imagery, international relief organisations and media accounts.AIR correspondent Kanchan Prasad reports from Colombo that Sri Lankan President while referring the recent UN letter seeking explanation on the alleged controversy surrounding the death of senior Tiger cadres and their leaders in the final phases of Eelam War IV to the Special Committee constituted last month, has also extended the term of the Special Committee by four months.The UN’s missive is based on the controversial interview given by the former Army Chief Sarath Fonseka to a local weekly. Sarath Fonseka is also the common candidate of the opposition parties in the forthcoming presidential pollsThe Special Committee with legal experts was set up last month by the to study and formulate recommendations for the consideration of the Sri Lankan President on 170 allegations of human rights violation during the last phase of the Eelam war IV as recounted in the US State Department Report to Congress. The 68 page US State Department report, which came out in October contains details of alleged ‘atrocities’ by both the military and LTTE during the final stages of the war in May and is prepared by the War Crimes office in the State Department. The recommendations by the Committee which earlier had to be submitted by 31st of December 2009 will now be given by April end next year , if no more extensions to the Committee are given by the Sri Lankan government.