Democratic National Alliance leader and former Army Commander General (retd) Sarath Fonseka said the Sri Lankan Army did not commit any war crimes during the conflict.

He said the Sunday Leader newspaper had misquoted him by stating that "Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa had ordered to shoot the LTTEers who surrendered with white flags" during the final days of the conflict.

"None came with white flags and the army never fired at any surrendees," Fonseka told a press conference at the Parliamentary complex yesterday. Such allegations were baseless, he said.

He said he would be ready to go before any tribunal or trial to expose war criminals, if there were any.

Answering a question raised by journalists whether anti-Sri Lankan forces could use his new position as an opposition MP to revive calls for an international war crimes investigation, Fonseka said that there was no difference in being a member of the government or the opposition for him to reveal war crimes, if there were any.

"I, as the former commander of the Army or a citizen of this country, would have gone before any court of law or hearing to expose such crimes," he said.

Protecting war criminals was not true patriotism and the Army would never do that, he said.

He pointed out that war criminals were exposed in cases such as the Bindunuwewa massacre, Kirshanthi Kumaraswamy rape and murder and the Embilipitiya mass graves.

The white-flag episode was a story published by the Sunday Leader newspaper which misquoted him and he had denied this story and that was the end to it, Fonseka said adding that he had nothing to do with the comments made by other parties on a misquoted story.