No cover-up in Sri Lanka: UN

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday denied media reports the UN has covered up a high civilian death toll during the bloody final phase of Sri Lanka's war against Tamil Tiger rebels.

Last week French newspaper Le Monde first reported that an unofficial and unverified UN tally for civilian deaths in the final months of the Government's siege of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam exceeded 20,000.

The Times later reported the same figure, writing in an editorial that "the UN has no right to collude in suppressing the appalling evidence" of a Government-executed massacre of civilians in northeastern Sri Lanka.

Ban vehemently rejected the notion that the world body had been involved in a cover-up.