The judge said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa, as a foreign head of state, enjoyed immunity.
“The court does not take this step lightly,” she ruled. “The plaintiffs’ complaint contains shocking allegations of human rights abuses.”
The worst of the abuses were alleged to have taken place at the end of the war.
The Sri Lankan embassy in Washington said the government “vehemently denied violating human rights laws”.
The army defeated Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009 to end more than 25 years of bloody civil war.
District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said that she had to dismiss the suit against President Rajapaksa because the Obama administration had said he was immune from litigation as a foreign head of state.
In her ruling she said that the dismissal was in “no way a reflection of the merits of plaintiffs’ claims or defendant’s defences”.
“Rather, two centuries of case law and basic constitutional and statutory principles prevent this court from allowing the plaintiffs’ complaint to move forward at this time.”
Sri Lanka maintains that few civilians were killed by troops during the war
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