By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Colombo
**Five doctors who worked in Sri Lanka’s combat zone in the last weeks of the war have been brought before the media.**They said that in media interviews during the fighting they had exaggerated figures for civilian casualties.
They said that they did this because of pressure on them from the Tamil Tiger rebels, or LTTE, who controlled the area where they were working.
These five doctors have been in government detention since mid-May.
Now, in peace-time, it is not clear under how much government pressure they are speaking.
But they appeared before the media, looking calm and well-groomed, wearing immaculate shirts and ties, though one had his arm in a sling - the result, he said, of a shell injury.
Threats
What they are now saying is what the Sri Lankan government has said all along.
The doctors said the rebels would threaten them and give them exaggerated lists of civilian casualties to report to any journalists who called them.
''Everyday the LTTE (Tamil Tiger) people came to the hospital, they gave at least this amount got injured, this amount dead, this area shells fell, they gave a list, this we had to tell," one of the doctors, Dr T. Varatharajah, said.
He said it was not in fact true that a hospital was shelled in an incident in early February.
The Red Cross and the United Nations, who had staff on the ground, both said that the incident did happen.
The doctors said they believed up to 750 civilians were killed from January onwards - the UN estimates several thousand.
The medics said civilians who died were either killed in cross-fire, or were shot by the Tamil Tigers while trying to escape.
The government says its weapons did not kill a single civilian.
Although the doctors say they were speaking under Tamil Tiger pressure during the fighting, last week a senior presidential aide said they could not be allowed to “go scot-free”.
More than 25 years of fighting in Sri Lanka ended with the government declaring total victory in May.