evidence: There is compelling evidence to charge Sri Lanka’s newly appointed secretary of defence, retired Major General Kamal Gunaratne, with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The South Africa based International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) has released a 100-page dossier on the secretary of defence, focusing on his role as the 53 Division commander in the war and the Competent Authority for IDPs and commander of Joseph camp, an army camp notorious for torture after the war. This follows the ITJP’s publication earlier this year of a dossier on Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, whose subsequent promotion to Army Commander, sparked enormous concern from the EU, US and UN[1]. [...] Gunaratne writes in his autobiography that he and Shavendra Silva received instructions on 14 May 2009 directly from then secretary of defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa to hasten the end of the war so as to avoid succumbing to US pressure to halt the fighting. Kamal Gunaratne said at the time that there was no option but to continue the attacks and "crush the terrorists", claiming there were no more civilians left inside the war zone. This in spite of the fact that he was fully aware that a day earlier the Sri Lankan Government itself had estimated there were still at least 15-20,000 civilians trapped inside the war zone[2] – which turned out to be a deliberate underestimate as the UN later said 60-80,000 people emerged alive[3].