COLOMBO – Sri Lanka’s Catholic church is sceptical of a politically compromised law enforcement’s ability to probe the “grand conspiracy” behind the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings.
Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith expressed his scepticism about the investigative saying, “With a police that acts according to the wishes of the current political leadership, a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) that follows the political leadership’s agenda, and a legal system and law enforcement personnel that political leaders are trying to control, there can be doubts about finding out what really happened.” The Archbishop was addressing a media briefing on Tuesday (13), to announce the submission of an interim document compiled by seven bishops of the church on the purported shortcomings of a report by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) that investigated the Easter Sunday bombings.
He urged the government not to brush the investigation under the carpet by “taking a few people to court and acting as if it’s done and dusted” and said the “hidden mysteries” behind the attack needed to be exposed.
Calling for further investigations based on some of the contents in the PCoI report as well as certain revelations made by MPs in Parliament, he said the statement by the former attorney general who had said “unequivocally” there was a grand conspiracy behind the attack, needed to be properly investigated.
“We have a right to know what that conspiracy was. Did he make his statement based on the contents of the commission report or the contents of the 22 volumes that were hidden and submitted later because apparently they could not be released. We do not know,” he said.
Days before his retirement in May 2021, outgoing Attorney General Dappula de Livera said there was clear evidence of a grand conspiracy linked to the April 21 2019 bombings that killed 269 people and injured over 500.
Twenty-two volumes of the PCoI report, purportedly containing sensitive information, were submitted to the Attorney General on March 12 this year, more than a month after the ‘final’ PCoI report was handed over to the President.
The PCoI recommended criminal proceedings be instituted against former president Maithripala Sirisena and several others over the incident.
The government has been claiming for some months now that Maulavi (Islamic preacher) Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed Naufer and an individual named Rasheed Hajjul Akbar, both of whom are in custody, had been identified as the only confirmed masterminds of the attack. Public Security Minister, Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekara, told reporters in May that no other suspect had been identified as having masterminded the attacks and stressed that the government has no intention to hide its findings.
The official account has been contested by opposition lawmakers and others. Main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Harin Fernando in a controversial statement made in Parliament on April 20 claimed the Islamic preacher was never brought before a Presidential Commission of Inquiry that probed the Easter bombings, and that an intelligence officer who had been arrested in connection with the bombings was transferred to the custody of military intelligence before a statement could be recorded.
Investigations by former CID Director Shani Abeysekara had revealed that the suspect had had discussions with the perpetrators of the attack, Fernando said.
“If the government or any institute thinks that our people will be satisfied by having 20, 30 cases in court instead of [an adequate investigation], they’re just fooling themselves,” Ranjith said, emphasizing, “We will not end our struggle here, just because some cases have been filed. We will continue.”
-economynext.com/ENCL