Sentences have been handed down following the 2019 Easter attacks in Sri Lanka

The Easter Sunday 2019 attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels were a huge blow to Sri Lanka. The country had stabilized after the bloody civil war of 1983-2009. The tourism industry had gained momentum and the economy had started to grow.

The country's Christian minority would celebrate the most important holiday of the year and foreign tourists came to celebrate the holiday. Then the country was shocked by the deadliest violence since the end of the civil war. 270 people were killed, including 45 foreigners, and nearly 6,000 were injured when suicide bombers detonated their bombs.

Sri Lankan Christians reacted with grief and anger. Many asked themselves in interviews with DN why the authorities had not acted - after all, there were warnings that something could happen.

Now a trial lasting over five years has ended and 15 people, all Muslims, have been sentenced to 200-260 years in prison for planning the attacks. When the verdict was handed down, several relatives of the victims of the attacks had camped outside the court.

- Finally, we have received justice. It has taken a long time to get here, Catholic priest Jude Fernando told the Guardian.

But in the background there is a suspicion that high-ranking people let it happen. Foreign intelligence had on several occasions warned the rulers of what could happen.

In a documentary on Britain's Channel 4, a whistleblower says the government ignored warnings about the attacks to boost the popularity of the influential Rajapaksa political family. Just months after the attack, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected president after a campaign in which he harshly attacked Islamist extremists. Gotabaya, who has been deposed, has denied the allegations but is banned from leaving the country due to the ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile, former president Maithripala Sirisena was sentenced in 2023 to pay compensation to the victims of the attacks for ignoring warnings of a terrorist attack.

In addition, two other high-ranking police and defense officials have been sentenced to death for failing to act on intelligence. These sentences will probably be commuted to life imprisonment.

There is also an ongoing investigation into the former head of Sri Lanka's intelligence service, who is suspected of having planned the attacks together with Islamist extremists.

The majority of the population in Sri Lanka are Buddhist. But the country also has a significant number of Muslims, Christians and Hindus.