Prime Minister Julia Gillard raised the accusations in bilateral talks with President Mahendra Rajapakse in Perth ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which opens Friday. Speaking ahead of the meeting, Gillard told reporters: "I have been clear about Australia's position in relation to allegations of human rights abuse in Sri Lanka. We believe that this is a serious question." As a lawyer's group said it had new evidence showing Sri Lankan troops committed war crimes in 2009, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said the UN Human Rights Council must examine whether atrocities occurred. He also said Sri Lanka, which strongly denies any wrongdoing by government forces, should investigate the claims as part of its own Reconciliation Commission report, due out next month. "It is of fundamental importance that the upcoming Reconciliation Commission report deal with various questions which have now been raised in the UN report on allegations of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka," Rudd said. "Australia's national position is that the Human Rights Council also needs to revisit its earlier deliberations on this matter." The war crimes claims centre on Sri Lanka's final push against Tamil Tiger separatists in 2009, when it is alleged government forces killed tens of thousands of civilians. Commonwealth countries such as Australia and Canada have been vocal in their calls for Sri Lanka to investigate, placing the issue high on the agenda at the 54-nation grouping's two-yearly meeting. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has threatened to boycott the next CHOGM summit, scheduled to be held in Colombo in 2013, unless Sri Lanka takes action. Gillard declined to back Harper's boycott call and said there were no plans to relocate the 2013 meeting. "My understanding is there is no intention to revisit the question of hosting of the next CHOGM meeting," she said. Rudd said all countries attending the meeting of mainly former British colonies in Perth were free to raise concerns with Sri Lanka individually. The International Commission of Jurists' Australian chapter said Wednesday it had received fresh photographic evidence of atrocities, including the alleged execution and degradation of female victims. "(It) deals with executions, it deals with (crimes) such as shooting through the forehead ... it deals with the exposure of women's bodies, presumably after death, and it deals with other evidence showing Sri Lankan army officials and officers," IJC Australian chief John Dowd told reporters in Sydney. Dowd said the photographs, collected by an Australian union official, had been forwarded to police. An ethnic Tamil living in Australia, Arunachalam Jegatheeswaran, this week tried to launch a war crimes case against Rajapakse in a Melbourne court, but officials quashed the action, citing laws that protect visiting heads of state.