{"id":144774,"date":"2024-10-08T14:51:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T21:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=144774"},"modified":"2024-10-08T14:51:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T21:51:13","slug":"sri-lanka-orders-new-probe-into-easter-sunday-bombings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2024\/10\/08\/sri-lanka-orders-new-probe-into-easter-sunday-bombings\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka orders new probe into Easter Sunday bombings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy CNA<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"Sri
A navy sailor and police officers stand guard outside St Anthony’s church on the fifth anniversary of the Easter Sunday suicide attacks, in Colombo on Apr 21, 2024. (Photo: AFP\/Ishara S. KODIKARA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka’s new government announced a probe on Tuesday (Oct 8) into the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 279 people, saying that previous investigations had failed to identify other culprits responsible for the country’s worst-ever attack against civilians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the aftermath, officials blamed a local jihadist group for the suicide bombings on three churches and three hotels, but a top Sri Lankan intelligence official was also accused of orchestrating the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other investigations faulted the authorities for failing to act on warnings from an Indian intelligence agency that an attack was imminent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There have been several commissions of inquiry, but some evidence was suppressed,” foreign minister Vijitha Herath told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We want to find out why there were irregularities in the previous investigations, take a fresh look at the incident, expose the culprits, and bring them to justice.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herath’s announcement came days after President Anura Kumara Dissanayake dismissed Sri Lanka’s intelligence chief, Suresh Sallay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

British broadcaster Channel 4 reported last year that Sallay was linked with the bombers and had met with them prior to the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A whistleblower told the network that he had permitted the attack to proceed with the intention of influencing that year’s presidential election in favour of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two days after the bombings, Rajapaksa declared his candidacy and won the November vote in a landslide after promising to stamp out Islamist extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sallay, who has denied any involvement in the bombings, was promoted to head Sri Lanka’s main spy agency following Rajapaksa’s win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also read:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Sri Lankan court orders ex-leader to pay victims of 2019 Easter Sunday bombings<\/a><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka’s Catholic minority has maintained a campaign for justice since the bombings, saying that prior investigations failed to answer outstanding questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Dissanayake on Sunday visited one of the churches targeted in the Easter Sunday attacks, where 116 people perished, and vowed justice for the victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There is a widespread belief in society that the Easter Sunday attacks may have been carried out to gain political mileage,” Dissanayake told the congregation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 500 people were wounded in the bombings, which also killed 45 foreigners and crashed the island nation’s lucrative tourism industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the Supreme Court fined then-president Maithripala Sirisena and four senior officials more than US$1.03 million in a civil case for their failure to prevent the attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN asked Sri Lanka in April to publish parts of previous inquiries into the bombings that had been withheld from the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy CNA Sri Lanka’s new government announced a probe on Tuesday (Oct 8) into the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 279 people, saying that previous investigations had failed to identify other culprits responsible for the country’s worst-ever attack against civilians. In the aftermath, officials blamed a local jihadist group for the suicide bombings on three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}