Via http://www.dailymirror.lk/news/45632-mannar-mass-grave-an-ordinary-cemetery-dg.html

What I find interesting are the conflicts in the stories that originally emerged from different government figures around the 7th, 8th and 9th of March. On Saturday 8 March, there was a story from AFP that quotes the JMO D. Waidyaratne (whom by all accounts was doing a professional job of the excavations until forced to stop) saying this:

“We have gathered skeletal remains from upper layers and grouped them into 81 boxes,” Waidyaratne told AFP. “These remains were in a mass grave buried in a haphazard way compared to the properly laid out graves we found at a depth of two metres.” He said forensic tests were being done in respect of the 81 groups of skeletal remains to establish the cause and time of death. “It is quite possible that these people were buried over the old cemetery and we need further investigations,” Waidyaratne. “This process is going to take a lot of time in the laboratory.” [http://news.yahoo.com/sri-lanka-mass-grave-over-old-burial-083811786.html]

Here the JMO accepts the government line that there could be an old cemetery under the bodies originally escavated, but maintains clearly that this doesn’t call into question the existence of the mass grave.

The Daily News story you cite came out two days later. I have not seen a story since that quotes Dr. Waidyaratne.