COLOMBO, Feb 25 — Sri Lankan authorities have arrested the country’s former intelligence chief in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners.
COLOMBO, Feb 25 — Sri Lankan authorities have arrested the country’s former intelligence chief in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners.
Retired Major General Suresh Sallay was taken into custody at dawn on Wednesday in a suburb of Colombo, police said.
“He was arrested for conspiracy and aiding and abetting the Easter Sunday attacks,” an investigating officer told AFP, adding that Sallay had maintained contact with individuals involved in the bombings even recently.
The coordinated attacks targeted three luxury hotels in the capital, two Roman Catholic churches, and an evangelical Protestant church outside Colombo, and were carried out by a domestic jihadist group.
The bombings marked the deadliest assault on civilians in Sri Lanka since the end of the nearly 37-year Tamil separatist war in 2009, which claimed over 100,000 lives.
Sallay, who became head of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) in 2019 after Gotabaya Rajapaksa assumed the presidency, has long denied allegations of involvement in planning the suicide bombings. His arrest comes ahead of the seventh anniversary of the attacks.
The Roman Catholic Church has criticised successive governments for failing to identify the masterminds behind the bombings. A 2023 report by British broadcaster Channel 4 linked Sallay to the Islamist bombers, suggesting he met them prior to the attacks. A whistleblower alleged that Sallay allowed the attacks to proceed to influence the 2019 presidential election in Rajapaksa’s favour, which he subsequently won, pledging to tackle Islamist extremism.
Former members of the jihadist group said in 2019 that they were initially funded by a military intelligence unit to promote a fundamentalist ideology in Sri Lanka’s multi-ethnic eastern province. Sallay was part of that unit. He was later promoted to lead the SIS following Rajapaksa’s victory but was removed after Anura Kumara Dissanayake became president in 2024, pledging to prosecute those responsible for the attacks.
While local jihadists carried out the bombings, Sallay has also been accused of orchestrating them. Two days after the attacks, ISIS claimed responsibility, but investigators found no evidence linking foreign actors directly. Other inquiries criticised authorities for ignoring warnings from Indian intelligence about the imminent attack.
More than 500 people were injured in the bombings, which severely impacted Sri Lanka’s tourism industry. In 2021, US authorities charged three Sri Lankans for supporting the attacks, which killed five US nationals; they are among 25 suspects indicted in Sri Lanka’s High Court.
The Supreme Court previously fined former president Maithripala Sirisena and four senior officials over US$1.03 million in a civil case for failing to prevent the attacks. The UN has urged Sri Lanka to release parts of past investigations that have been withheld from the public. — AFP
BANGKOK, April 24 — Thailand’s Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a petition accusing 44 current and former opposition lawmakers of ethics violations over their 2021 move to amend a law protecting the monarchy from criticism, according to Thai media reports.
PUTRAJAYA, April 24 — The Court of Appeal today dismissed Kepala Batas MP Dr Siti Mastura’s appeal against a High Court ruling ordering her to pay RM825,000 in damages and costs for defaming three DAP leaders by linking them to former Communist Party of Malaya leader Chin Peng.
THE HAGUE, April 23 — Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte will stand trial at the International Criminal Court after judges on Thursday confirmed charges of crimes against humanity over his controversial “war on drugs.”