Sri Lanka: fourteen people found guilty of Easter 2019 attacks

Sri Lankan justice on Tuesday September 22 found fourteen people guilty of having directly participated, on Easter Sunday 2019, in the deadliest attacks in the country's history. On April 21 of that year, eight “suicide bombers” sowed terror on the island by blowing themselves up in three churches and as many luxury hotels, causing the death of 279 people, including 45 foreigners.

The police immediately attributed these suicide attacks to a jihadist movement which had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group. But over the course of the investigation, the Catholic Church, the press and several witnesses implicated the Sri Lankan intelligence services, accused of a plot which aimed to sow chaos on the island to favor the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as president.

After five years of proceedings, the High Court in the capital Colombo on Tuesday found 14 of the 24 defendants who appeared before it guilty of having directly taken part in the attacks. A fifteenth defendant was found guilty of only part of the charges against him, the other nine were acquitted.

The president of the High Court announced at the hearing that the sentences against the accused would be announced later on Tuesday. All were charged with murder, attempted murder and complicity in murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, possession of weapons and explosives, crimes punishable by death. Although the death penalty is still in force in its Penal Code, Sri Lanka has suspended all executions since 1976, generally commuted to life imprisonment.

Gathered since the start of the hearing Tuesday morning around the court, placed under heavy police protection, dozens of relatives welcomed the guilty verdict with satisfaction. “Finally justice has been done,” a Catholic priest, Jude Fernando, rejoiced to AFP. “It’s been a long road. This is what the families of the victims and the survivors were waiting for.” During the trial, the prosecution presented Mohamed Naufar as one of the organizers of the attacks. At the hearing, he and all the other defendants denied any participation.

Three of the defendants were also indicted for acts of terrorism by the US Department of Justice in a California federal court. Beyond this single trial, the investigation into the Easter 2019 attacks saw a spectacular development in February, with the arrest and incarceration of a former intelligence officer, retired general Suresh Sallay. The Minister of Public Security, Ananda Wijepala, presented him before Parliament as the real “mastermind” of the attacks. Suspected of having benefited from the plot, the former head of state (2019-2022) Gotabaya Rajapaksa has not yet been formally indicted but the courts have prohibited him from leaving the country.

According to documents in this file, the attack aimed to create chaos before the presidential election and to make Gotabaya Rajapaksa, former Minister of Defense praised by his supporters for having defeated the Tamil rebellion (1983-2009), the only one capable of restoring security. Member of a long political dynasty, he vigorously denied any involvement. In a related trial, the former police chief and the ex-secretary general of the Ministry of Defense were sentenced to death last July for failing to prevent the attacks.