Sri Lanka Easter Bombings: Questions Remain After Verdict - Frontline Magazine

NEWS ANALYSIS Even after the conviction of 14 of the 24 persons charged with the 2019 Sri Lankan Easter Sunday bombings, there is no closure for the families of those killed that day because of lingering suspicions about the role of the state in the bombing. https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article28033113.ece More than seven years after the incident that killed as many as 279 people, including 42 foreign nationals, and left over 500 wounded, a three-judge bench of Sri Lanka’s High Court on September 22 held that 14 of the 24 accused were directly involved and sentenced them to terms ranging from 200 to 260 years. They were found guilty on all 900 counts, including murder and conspiracy to commit terrorism, while a 15th accused was found guilty of some of the charges. The proceedings were held on a daily basis for about five years. Most of the accused in the bombings were highly educated and hailed from middle- or upper middle-class families. Nine were acquitted. https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article28036508.ece Of the 14 convicted, three men were also indicted in California by the US Justice Department: Mohamed Naufar, alias Naufer Moulavi (1st accused); Ahamed Milhan Hayathu Mohamed (3rd); and Mohamed Anwar Mohamed Rizkan (6th). The accused were initially charged with more than 23,270 offences. The witnesses numbered over 2,300 and the indictment ran into 8,900 pages. On April 21, 2019, which fell on Easter Sunday, nine suicide bombers of the local Islamist group National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) struck three churches (unconnected with each other) and three popular five-star hotels in Colombo. The bombings put the nation in the grip of a fear psychosis, and it voted overwhelmingly to bring the Rajapaksa clan back to power. It is speculated that the former Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, notorious for his mercurial temper, would not have been elected President but for the suicide attacks. The Rajapaksa family, which sold the idea that only it could root out terrorism, appeared to benefit directly from the sense of fear and insecurity that the bombings created in Sri Lanka. In April 2024, the National People’s Power (NPP), the ruling coalition in Sri Lanka, claimed that the bombings were a “conspiracy by a group to achieve a narrow political objective by creating discord between ethnicities, causing communal riots, and massive loss of life and property”. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake promised that the NPP would “take legal action against those who failed to prevent the Easter attack despite receiving sufficient information about it” as well as against “those who interfered with the investigation... to protect the real conspirators of the crime”. It was a politically charged investigation. It was also the largest criminal investigation in Sri Lankan history, aided by a slew of foreign investigation and intelligence agencies, including from India. Two Presidential Commissions and a Parliamentary Select Committee examined the different facets of events leading up to the blasts. In July 2026, two of the senior-most officials in the government security apparatus were held responsible for negligence in the bombings case. Pujith Jayasundara, the head of police, and Hemasiri Fernando, Defence Secretary with oversight over the police, were arrested and sentenced to death after being found guilty of dereliction of duty. (Sri Lanka has not executed a prisoner in about half a century. It is likely that their sentences will be converted to life imprisonment without parole.) The two officials were found to have ignored repeated warnings. The most concrete intelligence was provided by the Tamil Nadu Police via Indian intelligence agencies, following a motorcycle that caught “fire” in Kattankudy in the island nation’s Eastern Province. That was a dry run, according to a senior official from Tamil Nadu, who had been on the trail of the NTJ since its formation. He conveyed this to his superiors the next day, and India’s external intelligence agency, R&AW, passed this information on to its Sri Lankan counterpart. A senior Indian official also met a Sri Lankan elected official occupying high office to convey the message of an impending catastrophe, as per information accessed by this correspondent. However, Sri Lanka took no notice. More disturbingly, a Sri Lankan intelligence officer, Suresh Sallay, was found to have been colluding with the accused ahead of the bombings. In February 2026, Sallay was arrested. Details of the charges against him were telecast on a Channel 4 documentary in 2023, about four years after the bombings. Sallay, who was head of military intelligence ahead of the blasts, was a known Rajapaksa supporter. After the bombings, Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed him as head of the Sri Lankan Intelligence Service. It was an unprecedented move—the head of military intelligence had never been made head of intelligence in the country’s history. After his arrest, Sallay claimed to be ill and was admitted to hospital for nearly 100 days. He also went on a hunger strike. The case against Sallay is ongoing and has assumed importance, with the charge being shifted from mere negligence to active facilitation of the terror act. The NPP government used a court order to ensure that Gotabaya would not leave the country. His sister-in-law Shirani (Mahinda Rajapaksa’s wife) fled the country, as did his other brother Basil. Mahinda’s son, Namal Rajapaksa, has been jailed on charges of corruption. The Sri Lankan media has quoted Father Jude Krishantha Fernando, director of mass communications for the Archdiocese of Colombo, as welcoming the ruling. But Father Fernando also said that the ruling “represented only one part of the case”. It would seem that the Church too views justice as incomplete as long as questions remain about the real masterminds behind the attacks. Polarising tactics Polarising tactics Within days of stepping down as Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who resorted to divisive rhetoric in the meantime, is made the Leader of the Opposition. story Polarising tactics Mahinda Rajapaksa greets religious leaders as he arrives to sign his resignation paper as Prime Minister, in Colombo on December 15. FL18_SRI_LANKA_POLITICS Attack and aftermath Attack and aftermath Two weeks after the deadly Easter Day bombings, there are more questions than answers in the island nation. But a determined civil society is rallying round to commence the process of healing. story Attack and aftermath 2019-05-24T07:17:00Z Inside St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, north of Colombo, where a suicide bomber blew himself up. 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