{"id":92868,"date":"2019-09-06T20:49:38","date_gmt":"2019-09-07T02:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=92868"},"modified":"2019-09-06T13:37:50","modified_gmt":"2019-09-06T20:37:50","slug":"easter-attacks-pujith-hemasiri-to-face-murder-charges-dsg-300-warnings-ignored-since-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/09\/06\/easter-attacks-pujith-hemasiri-to-face-murder-charges-dsg-300-warnings-ignored-since-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Easter attacks: Pujith, Hemasiri to face murder charges DSG: 300 warnings ignored since 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>By A. J Abeynayake Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris yesterday told Colombo Chief Magistrate Vikum A. Kaluwarachchi that the prosecution was suspicious whether then IGP Pujith Jayasundera and Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando had conspired with Easter Sunday suicide bomber Zahran Hashim.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DSG Peiris told court that since 2016 to April 21, 2019, there had been 347 warnings regarding Zahran Hashim and Muslim extremists planning attacks. According to DSG Peiris, out of those warnings, 131 specific reports had been brought to the attention of Jayasundera and 94 to Fernando.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alleging that they had been holidaying in April, DSG Peiris said that if they had acted on intelligence received on April 20 and 21 the attacks could have been averted.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nearly 274 victims perished in six separate attacks carried out by seven persons. According to DSG Peiris, 477 others received injuries.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Faulting Jayasundera and Fernando for not taking immediate remedial measures, the DSG pointed out that they couldn&#8217;t shirk their responsibility by simply directing those warnings to junior personnel.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The top AG Department official accused them of negligence.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The court was told that they hadn\u2019t even taken cognizance of the intelligence gathered by operatives under extremely difficult conditions. The DSG revealed how Hemasiri Fernando had responded two to three hours later to warning received from State<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Intelligence Services (SIS) Chief DIG Nilantha Jayawardena the day before the suicide attacks.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Asserting that their actions had proved a case of negligence on their part, the AG had directed that they be investigated for murder, the DSG said.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DSG Peiris pointed out that while they were being questioned both of them had got sick simultaneously like twins and been hospitalized.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>President&#8217;s Counsel Anuja Premaratne, Counsel for Jayasundera told the court that his client had not received such a number of reports, and denied all allegations levelled by DSG Peiris.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DSG Peiris told the Court that once the investigations were over Jayasundera and Fernando would be charged for murder and conspiracy to murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By A. J Abeynayake Courtesy The Island Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris yesterday told Colombo Chief Magistrate Vikum A. Kaluwarachchi that the prosecution was suspicious whether then IGP Pujith Jayasundera and Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando had conspired with Easter Sunday suicide bomber Zahran Hashim. DSG Peiris told court that since 2016 to April 21, 2019, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92868","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=92868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}