Sri Lanka government to investigate allegation of intelligence complicity in 2019 Easter bombings
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s government will appoint a parliamentary committee to investigate allegations made in a British television report that Sri Lankan intelligence had complicity in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 269 people.
Labor Minister Manusha Nanayakkara told Parliament on Tuesday that details on the investigation will be announced soon.
A man interviewed in the Channel 4 videos released Tuesday said he arranged a meeting between a local Islamic State-inspired group and a top state intelligence official to hatch a plot to create insecurity in Sri Lanka and enable Gotabaya Rajapaksa to win the presidential election later that year.
Azad Maulana was a spokesman for a breakaway group of the Tamil Tiger rebels that later became a pro-state militia and helped the government defeat the rebels and win Sri Lanka's long civil war in 2009.
Rajapaksa was a top defense official during the war, and his older brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had been defeated in the 2015 elections after 10 years in power.
A group of Sri Lankans inspired by the Islamic State group carried out the six near-simultaneous suicide bombings in churches and tourist hotels on April, 21, 2019.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s government will appoint a parliamentary committee to investigate allegations made in a British television report that Sri Lankan intelligence had complicity in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 269 people.
Labor Minister Manusha Nanayakkara told Parliament on Tuesday that details on the investigation will be announced soon.
A man interviewed in the Channel 4 videos released Tuesday said he arranged a meeting between a local Islamic State-inspired group and a top state intelligence official to hatch a plot to create insecurity in Sri Lanka and enable Gotabaya Rajapaksa to win the presidential election later that year.
Azad Maulana was a spokesman for a breakaway group of the Tamil Tiger rebels that later became a pro-state militia and helped the government defeat the rebels and win Sri Lanka's long civil war in 2009.
Rajapaksa was a top defense official during the war, and his older brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had been defeated in the 2015 elections after 10 years in power.
A group of Sri Lankans inspired by the Islamic State group carried out the six near-simultaneous suicide bombings in churches and tourist hotels on April, 21, 2019.
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The attacks killed 269 people, including worshippers at Easter Sunday services, locals and foreign tourists, and revived memories of frequent bombings during the quarter-century war.
Fears over national security enabled Rajapaksa to sweep to power. He was forced to resign last year after mass protests over the country’s worst economic crisis.
In the Channel 4 program, Maulana said he arranged a meeting in 2018 between IS-inspired extremists and a top intelligence officer at the behest of his boss at the time, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, the leader of the rebel splinter group-turned-political party.
Maulana said Chandrakanthan had met the group in prison while in detention on allegations of murder and found they could be useful to create insecurity in the country.
Maulana told Channel 4 that he himself did not participate in the meeting but that the intelligence officer told him later that creating insecurity was the only way to return the Rajapaksa family to power.
After security camera footage of the bombings was released, Maulana recognized the faces of the attackers carrying bomb-laden backpacks as those whom he had arranged to meet with the intelligence officer, Maulana said in the program.
Channel 4 reported that Maulana had been interviewed by U.N investigators and European intelligence services over his claims.
Neither Chandrakanthan or Rajapaksa has commented on the claims.
Pro-Rajapaksa lawmaker Mahindananda Aluthgamage rejected the claims in the documentary. He told Parliament that Rajapaksa had no reason to set off bombs or use suicide bombers to get elected because public support was already on his side as shown by the result of local elections held in 2018.
Krishan Francis, The Associated Press
British broadcaster: Rajapaksa officials behind Easter 2019 attacks
by Melani Manel Perera
An investigation aired yesterday on Channel 4 implicates the former president for the Colombo massacres. In a documentary with unreleased material, a source revealed that a meeting was arranged between the current intelligence chief and Islamic extremists. The current executive says it will support an international investigation, but ministers contradict each other.
Colombo (AsiaNews) - Some officials close to the family of the former Sri Lankan president have facilitated the organization of the 2019 Easter attacks - in which over 260 people died - to favor the Rajapaksa family's return to power.
The revelation, made by a high-level source, is contained in an investigative documentary of the "Dispatches" program aired yesterday on the British broadcaster Channel 4. In the video, the source admits that in 2018 he had organized a meeting between the curren t of military intelligence, Suresh Salley, who was then working for the national intelligence directorate, and some militiamen of the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), an extremist organization affiliated with the Islamic State.
The goal was to hatch a plot to destabilize the country and ensure that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, effectively elected president in November 2019 after promising to shed light on the attacks, came to power.
Six suicide attacks took place on Easter Sunday against churches and luxury hotels in the capital Colombo, killing 269 people and injuring around 500. Since then, law enforcement has had difficulty arresting those responsible for the tragedy and thoroughly investigate the massacre.
The broadcast of the documentary immediately generated a parliamentary debate, following which the ministers also contradicted each other. Labor minister Manusha Nanayakkara said yesterday that the current president, Ranil Wickremesinghe - appointed after street protests last year ousted Rajapaksa - will support an international investigation. At the same time, he added, the executive will set up a "special parliamentary commission" to look into the matter.
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa has also called for an international inquiry to be launched, while MPs from Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, the party still led by the Rajapaksa family, argue that the British broadcast is trying to create internal divisions of the country, and that the population had already decided, before the attacks, to vote for the election of the former president.
Later, the government spokesman and Minister of Transport and Mass Media, Bandula Gunawardena, denied in a press conference that there had been a discussion between the Council of Ministers regarding the matter of the documentary: "We only discussed what it was on the agenda,” he said.
Both Gunawardena and Nanayakkara have argued that Channel 4 has in the past broadcast its documentaries before sessions of the UN Human Rights Commissions to tarnish Sri Lanka's reputation.
by Melani Manel Perera
An investigation aired yesterday on Channel 4 implicates the former president for the Colombo massacres. In a documentary with unreleased material, a source revealed that a meeting was arranged between the current intelligence chief and Islamic extremists. The current executive says it will support an international investigation, but ministers contradict each other.
Colombo (AsiaNews) - Some officials close to the family of the former Sri Lankan president have facilitated the organization of the 2019 Easter attacks - in which over 260 people died - to favor the Rajapaksa family's return to power.
The revelation, made by a high-level source, is contained in an investigative documentary of the "Dispatches" program aired yesterday on the British broadcaster Channel 4. In the video, the source admits that in 2018 he had organized a meeting between the curren t of military intelligence, Suresh Salley, who was then working for the national intelligence directorate, and some militiamen of the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), an extremist organization affiliated with the Islamic State.
The goal was to hatch a plot to destabilize the country and ensure that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, effectively elected president in November 2019 after promising to shed light on the attacks, came to power.
Six suicide attacks took place on Easter Sunday against churches and luxury hotels in the capital Colombo, killing 269 people and injuring around 500. Since then, law enforcement has had difficulty arresting those responsible for the tragedy and thoroughly investigate the massacre.
The broadcast of the documentary immediately generated a parliamentary debate, following which the ministers also contradicted each other. Labor minister Manusha Nanayakkara said yesterday that the current president, Ranil Wickremesinghe - appointed after street protests last year ousted Rajapaksa - will support an international investigation. At the same time, he added, the executive will set up a "special parliamentary commission" to look into the matter.
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa has also called for an international inquiry to be launched, while MPs from Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, the party still led by the Rajapaksa family, argue that the British broadcast is trying to create internal divisions of the country, and that the population had already decided, before the attacks, to vote for the election of the former president.
Later, the government spokesman and Minister of Transport and Mass Media, Bandula Gunawardena, denied in a press conference that there had been a discussion between the Council of Ministers regarding the matter of the documentary: "We only discussed what it was on the agenda,” he said.
Both Gunawardena and Nanayakkara have argued that Channel 4 has in the past broadcast its documentaries before sessions of the UN Human Rights Commissions to tarnish Sri Lanka's reputation.
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