Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay (Retd.)

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There is growing realisation that the allegations made by Azad Maulana would be worthless in practical terms in a court of law until and unless Azad Maulana himself backs it up by testifying himself in a Sri Lankan tribunal and being cross examined by lawyers. He could even do this from afar by electronic methods too

Let me begin this article with an apology and explanation to readers. This week’s column should have been the second and final part of last week’s article (‘Is JVP Gen-Sec Tilvin, the power behind President Dissanayake’s throne?’). However this week’s column would be about the sensational arrest and detention of former Intelligence chief Major General Suresh Sallay. The Tilvin Silva article will be published next week.

Former head of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) and ex-chief of Military Intelligence, Major General Suresh Sallay (Retd.) was arrested by a special team of police officers from the  Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Peliyagoda at 8.10 a.m. on Wednesday, February 25, 2026. Provisions of the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) were invoked to detain him for questioning for a 72 hour period. Thereafter he may be either released or held further for a period of 90 days on a detention order under the PTA.

Meera Srinivasan, the Colombo Correspondent of ‘The Hindu’, quoted an unnamed senior official who stated that the arrest was made under the PTA based on adequate evidence” and described it as a major breakthrough”in the on going investigation into the dastardly Easter Sunday attacks.

Three churches and four hotels in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa were attacked  in the morning of  April 21, 2019 (Easter Sunday) by suicide bombers belonging to an Islamic radical group. 270 persons including 45 foreign nationals were killed and over 500 injured in the attacks.

Media briefing

According to newspaper reports, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) in charge of the Legal Division, Jaliya Senaratne speaking at a special media briefing said that since Sallay has been arrested under the provisions of the PTA, he could be held for 72 hours (three days) for questioning. Thereafter, based on the evidence, steps can be taken to obtain a detention order, and that legal provisions exist for this purpose,” he added. Senaratne also said the public will be informed in due course about the facts that they need to know regarding Sallay’s arrest.

The Senior DIG in charge of the Western Province, Sajeewa Medawatte, also addressing the same press conference, stated that Sallay was arrested based on evidence related to the 2019 Easter attacks bombings. Medawatte further mentioned that a lengthy investigation needs to be conducted in this regard and that more information will be revealed in due course. 

He also noted that it is difficult to disclose further information within a few hours and emphasised that the Police have carried out their duties properly. Responding to journalists’ questions about allegations that a campaign has been launched against the Police for arresting Sallay without properly disclosing the reason, he stated that if the arrest had not been made, there would have been a campaign against the Police for failing to act. Medawatte further said that during further  interrogation of Sallay, information about the mastermind behind the 2019 Easter attacks may be uncovered.

One of the key promises made by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake was to carry out a full investigation into the Easter Sunday attacks. The arrest of Suresh Sallay is the first high profile arrest of a defence official  after President Dissanayake became President in September 2024. The arrest of a former intelligence chief in connection with the Easter bombings has received wide coverage in the national and international media.

High-ranking positions

Major General Sallay (Retd.) has held several high-ranking positions within Sri Lanka’s security and diplomatic spheres in a career spanning more than three decades. 1987: Joined the Sri Lanka Army (Infantry and Signals). 2006-2009: First Secretary, Sri Lankan Embassy in Paris. 2012-2016: Director of Military Intelligence (DMI) 2016-2018: Minister Counsellor, Sri Lankan High Commission in Malaysia. 2019 (Jan.-Nov.): Student, National Defence College, New Delhi 2019–2024: Director, State Intelligence Service (SIS). Following his removal as SIS chief in late 2024, Sallay joined the Pathfinder Foundation, a prominent think tank  in a senior capacity.

‘Channel 4’ TV

This writer is not aware of the  available evidence in the hands of the Police or  whether ‘new’ evidence has been acquired concerning Suresh Sallay’s alleged involvement in the Easter attacks. However the alleged involvement of Sallay was first made in the public domain by  Mohammed Hanzeer alias Azad Maulana in a ‘Channel 4’ TV programme. Azad Maulana was formerly a close aide of TMVP leader and former Eastern Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyaan.

The chief allegation by Azad Maulana regarding Suresh Sallay was that he had got him (Azad Maulana) to arrange a meeting between the head of the National Thowheed Jamath head and chief suicide bomber Zahran Hashim and Suresh Sallay in the Puttalam District. Suresh Sallay responded then to this by proving that he was in Malaysia at the time this alleged meeting took place. Sallay also stated that he was in New Delhi when the Easter bombings occurred.

Interaction

To strike a personal note, I have never met Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay. However I did interact with him by electronic mail and telephone from Canada in early 2014 when Sallay was head of Military Intelligence. This was to get some information for a series of articles about an aborted attempt to revive the LTTE. Sallay was very frank and forthright in disclosing details.  My impression of Suresh Sallay through that brief long-distance interaction was that he was an efficient, capable and knowledgeable intelligence chief.

It is against this backdrop that this column focuses on the arrest of Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay and his alleged connection to the April 2019 bombings with emphasis on the allegations made by Azad Maulana. I shall re-visit the past with the aid of some earlier writings of mine in this respect.

Conspiracy theories

The coordinated suicide bomber attacks by a group of misguided Muslim zealots against three churches and four luxury hotels in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa on Easter Sunday (21 April) in 2019 brought in its wake several conspiracy theories. Chief among these was the one which suspected that an official or officials of Sri Lanka’s intelligence services had manipulated the Muslim youths into launching the attacks with the objective of facilitating the return to power of former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa as President. This conspiracy theory received a tremendous boost in 2023 when Britain’s ‘Channel 4’ TV aired the documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Easter bombings’ in its ‘Dispatches’ programme on Tuesday September 5, 2023. Tamil Makkal Viduthalaip Puligal (TMVP) leader Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyaan’s former secretary and ex-TMVP spokesperson Mohammed Milhilar Mohammed Hanzeer alias Azad Maulana was the whistleblower who made the controversial disclosures.

The documentary aired on ‘Dispatches’ by ‘Channel 4’ on September 5 titled Sri Lanka’s Easter bombings, was screened by the Universal Human Rights Council (UHRC) on the evening of Thursday, September 21, 2023 in Geneva. The venue was the Octagon Campus 2, Chemin du Pavillon 1218 Grand Saconne. 

Azad Maulana’s statementThere was a discussion after the screening. Prior to the discussion, copies of a detailed statement issued by Azad Maulana were distributed to those present. Azad Maulana who was not present physically answered questions via video link later. The statement issued by Azad Maulana was a clarification and amplification of the comments made by him in the documentary. The information he divulged in the film was placed in perspective by providing more details in the statement. Here are some relevant excerpts:

Relevant excerpts: 

On 21 April 2019 on Easter Sunday a terror attack killed 269 persons including 45 children, and 40 foreigners and injured more than 500 others. Only when the media revealed the identity of the suicide bombers after the attack did I realise that I had strong evidence about the masterminds and other perpetrators and also the motivation for this terror attack. I have in no way been involved in preparing or carrying out these terrible and devastating attacks.” 

Following the defeat of the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government in 2015, Pillaiyaan was arrested and imprisoned in the Batticaloa prison under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in connection with the murder of former Tamil National Alliance Member of Parliament Joseph Pararajasingham, who was shot dead on the Christmas Day of 2005 at the St. Mary’s Cathedral, Batticaloa.”

As a Secretary to Pillaiyaan, the court had granted me permission, along with his lawyers, to meet Pillaiyaan to discuss legal matters. During a visit in September 2017, Pillaiyaan told me that some Muslim prisoners from Kattankudy were with him in the same cell. A father, his son and six others had been remanded for extremist activities and attacks on another Muslim group in Kattankudy. They were from an organisation called National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ).” 

On Pillaiyaan’s request, I met Sainy Moulavi. Later, Pillaiyaan asked me to contact the Military Intelligence (MI) to arrange funds for these prisoners’ relatives to pay their bail. They were released on October 24, 2017. At the end of January 2018, Pillaiyaan told me to arrange a secret meeting between Suresh Sallay, who was then a Brigadier, and Sainy Moulavi’s group. Pillaiyaan said that Suresh Sallay would inform me about the meeting place and time.”

A few days later Suresh Sallay contacted me and asked me to request Sainy Moulavi to come to the Puttalam Vanaththavillu area. The next day I travelled with an MI officer from Colombo to Puttalam, Sainy Moulavi’s group came from Kurunegala. Pillaiyaan advised us not to use my own vehicle or driver for this meeting and said that the transport would be facilitated by the MI.” 

The meeting took place in early February 2018 at a large coconut farm of 50 to 60 acres, located outside of Puttalam. Suresh Sallay arrived in a grey colour Toyota car with a driver. Sainy Moulavi arrived 30 minutes later with a group of six persons in a white van. Sainy Moulavi introduced his elder brother Moulavi Zaharan as the leader of the group. The meeting lasted for more than two hours. I did not participate in the meeting but waited outside.” 

After the meeting, I travelled to Batticaloa and on the next day updated Pillaiyaan about the meeting. Pillaiyaan said that Suresh Sallay had a big plan and a deal with Zahran’s group like the one with TMVP. He told me to keep the information about this meeting secret and to assist if they asked for any help. Besides the meeting with Sainy Moulavi in prison in September 2017, I met Zahran and his group only one time in February 2018 during the meeting with Suresh Sallay. Apart from this, I had no connection or relationship with them. I was not aware of their terrorist intent or plan until after the terror attack.” 

On Easter Sunday, 21st April 2019, Suresh Sallay contacted me at around 7 a.m. and told me to go immediately to the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo, to pick up a person who was waiting there and take the person’s phone. I told him that I was currently in Batticaloa and not in Colombo.” 

About an hour after this conversation, simultaneous terrorist attacks took place across the country. Immediately after the attacks Pillaiyaan sent a message through a prison guard and asked me to meet him urgently. When I saw him in prison at about 11 a.m. on Easter Sunday he told me that the mastermind behind the Easter attack was Suresh Sallay and that he had assumed that an attack like this would happen.” 

He asked me to call Sainy Moulavi to find out, there was, however, no response. It was only because of media reports in the evening that I realised that the participants in the meeting that I had organised at the request of Pillaiyan were indeed suicide bombers involved in the Easter attack.”

Through the President’s Investigation Commission and the inquiries of the CID I also learned that the person whom Suresh Sallay had wanted me to meet was Jameel, the bomber who had been tasked to carry out a suicide attack at the Taj Samudra Hotel but then, in a last-minute change of plans, left the Taj and later exploded himself in a small hotel in Dehiwala.”

Political asylum

After fleeing from Sri Lanka via India  to Europe, Azad Maulana  applied for political asylum in Switzerland. Thereafter he went to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and made a detailed statement to a panel from the OHCHR Sri Lanka Accountability project. He took five days to testify. 

Apart from the OHCHR, Maulana has also made statements to several other human rights organisations and international NGOs. It could be seen therefore that Azad Maulana has the capacity and potential to provide much information regarding April 21, 2019 attacks. 

At the same time there is growing realisation that the allegations made by Azad Maulana would be worthless in practical terms in a court of law until and unless Azad Maulana himself backs it up by testifying himself in a Sri Lankan tribunal and being cross examined by lawyers. He could even do this from afar by electronic methods too. 

Maulana’s reluctance

The problem was Azad Maulana’s reluctance to cooperate with the Sri Lankan judicial system alone. He was willing to testify only before an independent international investigation. The statements made by Azad Maulana on ‘Channel 4’ and at a public meeting in Geneva indicated this state of mind.This is what Azad Maulana  said: As a witness to the planning of several terrorist attacks, political assassinations and kidnappings in Sri Lanka, I am willing to testify in investigations into these crimes. I do not believe, however, that the authorities in Sri Lanka have an interest in revealing the truth. I will therefore only bear witness before an international independent investigation.”

The key question therefore is whether Azad Maulana has  now changed his mind and is prepared to testify in open court. Has the advent of a new JVP-led NPP Government headed by President Dissanayake  resulted in Maulana cooperating with the investigation?  If so has this enabled Sri Lankan sleuths to gain more information about the Eastern bombings?

Pillaiyaan

Furthermore TMVP leader Pillaiyaan too has been detained under the PTA since April 2025. Media reports have stated that he is being interrogated about the April bombings. Has that interrogation yielded information leading to Suresh Sallay’s arrest? We do not know at this juncture and have to wait for the Police to reveal more details at the appropriate time as promised by senior DIG’s at the media conference.

However it must be emphasised that all allegations made by Azad Maulana are yet to be verified and authenticated. Moreover, they have been denied as falsehoods by those whom the allegations were levelled against especially Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay.

Conjecture and inference

The primary charge made against Sallay by Maulana hinges around an alleged meeting at Karadippooval in Puttalam between the intelligence chief and Zahran Hashim the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) leader and livewire behind the Easter bombings.Maulana’s allegation is essentially conjecture and inference based on that meeting.

However, it must be said in fairness to Suresh Sallay that he has denied being in Sri Lanka at the time of the  purported meeting. Has the Police received further information on this matter now? Will the  arrest,detention and interrogation of Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay lead to a breakthrough in the ongoing investigation into the April 2019 Bombings?

(D.B.S.Jeyaraj can be reached at dbsjeyaraj@yahoo.com)