Former president Sirisena ordered to pay Rs 100m as compensation for Easter Sunday victims

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By Editor_1
Former President Maithripala Sirisena was ordered by the Supreme Court on Monday (July 15, 2024) to settle the full payment of compensation to the victims of the 2019 Easter terror attacks before August 30 - File

COLOMBO –  Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday (12) that inaction by the country’s former president and four others led to Easter Sunday bomb attacks in 2019 that killed nearly 270 people and ordered them to pay compensation for violating the basic rights of the victims and their families.

A seven-judge bench of the top court ordered former President Maithripala Sirisena to pay 100 million rupees ($273,300) from his personal funds. It also ordered the former police chief Pujith Jayasundara and former State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director Nilantha Jayawardena to pay 75 million rupees each, former Defence Ministry Secretary Hemasiri Fernando 50 million rupees and former Chief of National Intelligence (CNI) Sisira Mendis 10 million rupees, a total of 210 million rupees ($574,000).

The State was also ordered to pay one million rupees as compensation to the victims.

The court held that a Victim Fund be established at the Office for Reparation which must formulate a scheme to “award the sums ordered as compensation in a fair and equitable manner to the victims and families”.

Two local Muslim groups that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group were accused of carrying out six near-simultaneous suicide bomb attacks targeting worshipers at Easter services at three churches and tourists eating breakfast at three top hotels.

A breakdown in communication caused by a rift between Sirisena and the then prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was blamed for the failure of authorities to act on near-specific foreign intelligence received prior to the attacks, which also wounded about 500 people.

The court said Sirisena, who was also defence minister and commander in chief of the armed forces, had not called regular meetings of the National Security Council and had omitted key personnel from the meetings he held.

“All this is a stark reality that strikes this court as a serious omission on the part of the then president,” the court said.

“This dismal failure on the part of former President Sirisena resulted in disastrous consequences for this country. Not only were lives lost and properties destroyed, but interracial tension and interethnic hatred began to raise their ugly heads, causing the very fabric of this nation to be broken,” it said.

“The due care with which the minister of defence should have exercised his wide powers in the greater good of the country was totally non-existent according to the evidence that has been placed before this court,” it said.

A presidential commission earlier recommended criminal procedures against Sirisena for alleged negligence, but it has not been followed up.

The government has prosecuted several people in connection with the attacks, but leaders of the country’s Catholic church say they suspect a larger conspiracy and are demanding that the leaders be revealed.

Thursday’s verdict was issued upon hearing a case filed against Sirisena and other senior state officials for allegedly failing to prevent the April 2019 bombings. Twelve petitions had been filed by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), families of the victims, members of the Catholic clergy and others.

-AP/EN/ENCL

 

 

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