The 26-year-long civil war in Sri Lanka, which began in 1983, saw an estimated 100,000 people killed but the Channel 4 short film, which documents the final stages of the Government's military campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009, has seemingly shed a harsh new light on the issue.

The one-hour documentary aired earlier this month, which was entitled "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields", included footage of Government soldiers executing bound prisoners; the dead bodies of naked, abused women dumped in a truck and the bombing of civilian hospitals.

The timing of the documentary is highly unwelcome in Sri Lanka as the Hambantota 2018 Commonwealth Games bid is currently entering its most crucial phase with their vital four-day inspection from the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) Evaluation Commission beginning today but Aluthgamage has dismissed the videos as fabricated.

"The Channel 4 documentary is a completely false documentary," Aluthgamage told insidethegames.

"The footage shown in it has been fabricated and we will not be affected by lies.

"It was simply false and it has no bearing on the Hambantota 2018 bid for the Commonwealth Games at all."

Aluthgamage's comments to insidethegames come after British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister Alistair Burt claimed he was "shocked by the horrific scenes" in the documentary, which he said contained "convincing evidence of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law."

Burt said the UK was ready to join the rest of the international community in pursuing "all options available" to pressure the Sri Lankan Government to act but while the Channel 4 documentary is a distraction for the Hambantota 2018 bid team; it will play no part at all in Commission's evaluation of the city because the visit is a technical assessment with no political agendas taken into account.

The five-person Commission, chaired by Scotland's Louise Martin, have just completed their four-day inspection of Hambantota's only rivals for the 2018 Commonwealth Games the Gold Coast in Australia and are now in Sri Lanka undertaking official proceedings in the Asian country.

They will be based in Colombo for the majority of the visit due to the lack of facilities currently in place in Hambantota but will spend a day in the bid city to look at where the venues for a potential 2018 Commonwealth Games will be built.

Following the visit to Sri Lanka, the Commission will release a report for voting delegates on the two bid cities in September shortly before the vote for the Games at the Federation's General Assembly in St Kitts and Nevis on November 11.

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