Sydney (AFP) - Australia stayed silent about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka in exchange for its cooperation in cracking down on people-smuggling, Colombo's new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in an interview published Monday.
Wickremesinghe said former president Mahinda Rajapakse had agreed to help stop boats carrying asylum-seekers leaving for Australia if Canberra kept quiet about alleged abuses by Rajapakse's regime.
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