Kabir: Suspect released by police due to powerful politician’s intervention carried out Easter attack
Posted on April 22nd, 2019
By Ifham Nizam Courtesy The Island
One of the suicide bombers, who carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, had been released from police custody a few months back due to pressure from a powerful politician, Minister Kabir Hashim revealed, yesterday.
Fielding questions, Petroleum Resource Development Minister Kabir Hashim told The Island that following some incidents in the Mawanella area, Intelligence had unearthed cache of explosives at Lacktowatta in Wanathawilluwa, Puttalam. During the raid two key suspects were captured. However, due to the intervention of a powerful politician, they had been released and one of them had been involved in Sunday’s attacks, the Minister said.
In January, the CID obtained a three-month detention order from the Defence Secretary to interrogate those arrested with some 100 kilos of explosives and 100 detonators in Wanathawilluwa.
The suspects, including the owner of the land where some of the explosives were found buried, were arrested by the CID.
The CID also recovered 20 litres of nitrate acid, fuse wire, two firearms, a stock of ammunition, a computer, a camera and a stock of dry rations.
Minister Hashim said his secretary had been shot by the extremists in retaliation for the police raid on their hideout.
This haul of explosives was recovered following investigations carried out on the telephone numbers found in a mobile phone of a suspect arrested over the incident where Buddha statutes were vandalised at Mawanella in January.
Minister Rajitha Senaratne, yesterday, said that international intelligence agencies had warned the government, on April 04, of an impending attack in the country.
He told a media briefing at Temple Trees, that the Chief of National Intelligence had warned the Inspector General of Police (IGP) of the attacks before April 11. “We are waiting for the President to remove the IGP,” he added.
Hashim also said that the Prime Minister and the State Minister of Defence had not been invited to National Security Council (NDC) meetings since December last year.
Minister Senaratne claimed that the NSC had not complied with a request for a meeting with the Prime Minister on Sunday morning.
Commenting on Sunday’s attacks, Hashim said that a local organisation identified as the National Tawheed Jamath was suspected of plotting Sunday’s explosions. He added that all suicide bombers were believed to be Sri Lankans. “We are conducting investigations to find out whether there have been any foreign links.”
April 22nd, 2019 at 7:36 pm
This looks to be some Government powerful politician or politicians are behind Easter Sunday attack???. In this Yahapalana Government everybody seem to be powerful than each, other than President Sirisena his main business is appoint Commissions to investigate. Print the investigation report and put in the dust bin.
April 22nd, 2019 at 10:18 pm
This commission is headed by a big crook. This crook will give a report what Sirisena wanted, blaming someone else.
The “powerful minister”‘s CV is as follows. Very likely he is the mastermind behind this.
Hizbullah was a member of Kattankudy Divisional Council. He was elected to the North Eastern Provincial Council at the 1988 provincial council election.
Hizbullah contested the 1989 parliamentary election as one of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress’ (SLMC) candidates in Batticaloa District. He was elected and entered Parliament.He was re-elected at the 1994 parliamentary election.[5] He was Deputy Minister of Media and Deputy Minister of Post and Telecommunication. He was not re-elected at the 2000 parliamentary election. He was then appointed chairman of the state owned National Water Supply and Drainage Board.
In 2000 SLMC leader M. H. M. Ashraff was to going to suspend Hizbullah from the party but in September 2000 Ashraff was killed. In the ensuing power struggle Hizbullah tried unsuccessfully to gain the leadership of the SLMC. Rauff Hakeem became leader of the SLMC whilst Hizbullah became deputy leader of the National Unity Alliance which was led by Ashraff’s widow Ferial Ashraff.
Hizbullah contested the 2001 parliamentary election as one of the People’s Alliance’s candidates in Batticaloa District. He was elected and re-entered Parliament. He contested the 2004 parliamentary election as a United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) candidate but the UPFA failed to win any seats in Batticaloa District.
Between 2004 and 2005 Hizbullah was chairman of the state owned Airport and Aviation Services Limited during which time he and his wife Sithy Rameeza Sahabdeen are alleged to have defrauded Rs 67.5 million from the company. Hizbullah defected back to the SLMC in 2005 before defecting again, in 2008, to the All Ceylon Muslim Congress, a constituent of the UPFA.
Hizbullah contested the 2008 provincial council election as one of the UPFA’s candidates in Batticaloa District and was elected to the Eastern Provincial Council. Hizbullah had wanted to be Chief Minister but the UPFA made Pillayan (S. Chandrakanthan) chief minister. He was instead appointed Minister for Health and Indigenous Medicine, Social Welfare, Probation and Childcare Services, Women’s Affairs, Youth Affairs, Sports, Information Technology Education, Co-operative Development, Food Supply and Distribution.
Hizbullah contested the 2010 parliamentary election as one of the UPFA’s candidates in Batticaloa District. He was elected and re-entered Parliament. Following the election he was appointed Deputy Minister of Child Development and Women’s Affairs.In January 2013 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Economic Development.
Hizbullah’s party, the ACMC, left the UPFA in December 2014 to support common opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena at the 2015 presidential election.Hizbullah chose to remain with the UPFA and support its leader Mahinda Rajapaksa in the election.Hizbullah was one of the UPFA’s candidates in Batticaloa District at the 2015 parliamentary election but the UPFA failed to win any seats in the district. However, after the election he was appointed as a UPFA National List MP in the Sri Lankan Parliament. He was sworn in as State Minister of Resettlement and Rehabilitation on 9 September 2015.
April 22nd, 2019 at 11:30 pm
I am very sad about this terrible loss of life in Sri Lanka.
Even though this wanton crime is tragic, there is ONE THING to be happy about: it did not arise from a communal religious conflict that originated within Sri Lanka. It is VERY UNLIKELY to INCITE religious conflict among the communities in Sri Lanka because they are rallying around in support of the Christian community.
Even now, it is well understood by most Sri Lankans that this was perpetrated by a small local Muslim jihadist group allied to the Islamic State which has now been completely ousted from their “Caliphate of Northern Iraq and Southern Syria”. The local terrorists have clearly received the organizational expertise, technology and the brain washing to field suicide bombers, from the Islamic State, and some of the suicide bombers may even be foreign.
This terrorist strike may also be in RETALIATION for the recent massacre of Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand by a Christian terrorist.
The global security community has been expecting such a strike … somewhere, some time and Sri Lanka, vulnerable and woefully unprepared under an incompetent government, was an easy target for the Islamic State to exact their revenge against their perceived “enemies”: the Christians and the citizens of Western powers who defeated them.
However, one other thing is also abundantly clear: the PRESENT Government of Sri Lanka failed monumentally to protect the people, despite having received REPEATED WARNINGS of an impending strike.
Already INEXPLICABLE aspects of their negligence have raised suspicions and allegations of their connection to this strike and possible motives; stay tuned to the local news channels regarding this.
Caught in their own rhetoric of “human rights” and pandering to the demands of the defeated Tamil terrorists still striving to achieve the “Eelam” they could not win by war, over the last 3 years the present government undermined the intelligence and the security forces, dismantled armed forces institutions and police forces that had defeated and defended Sri Lanka against local and foreign inspired terrorism, and hunted down our heroes for alleged “war crimes” against the Tamil Terrorists, leaving the country wide open to the influx of terrorists both Muslim and Tamil, international drug dealers, and assorted criminals of every kind who had been defeated, imprisoned or chased out by the previous government.
After 10 years of post-war peace without one single violent incident, we are now seeing ONE MORE EXAMPLE of the many adverse impacts of this unpatriotic, negligent and grossly incompetent government on the innocent ordinary people of Sri Lanka.
In my view, this incompetent government should RESIGN IMMEDIATELY and hand over power NOW to those who have amply demonstrated in the past that they have the will and the experience to protect and defend ALL of its people.
In my view, whether this government resigns now or not, they will without a doubt be VOTED OUT in the national elections to be held early next year.
Also without a doubt, this incident will have a SEVERE ADVERSE IMPACT on Sri Lanka’s economy.