Pujith, Hemasiri sentenced to death over 2019 Easter bombings

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By Editor_1
The Easter Sunday 2019 bombings devastated three churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka and left hundreds dead - AFP

COLOMBO – A Sri Lankan court sentenced two ex-security officials to death on Friday (July 31) for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners.

In a majority decision, a three-judge bench comprising Justices Priyantha Liyanage, Viraj Weerasuriya and Tilakarathna Bandara ruled that former police chief Pujith Jayasundara and former defence ministry secretary Hemasiri Fernando failed in their duties to stop the deadly attacks, blamed on a homegrown Islamist extremist group.

Jayasundara, 66, and Fernando, 76, can appeal against the sentence in the Supreme Court, but have been remanded to judicial custody until granted bail.

Sri Lanka has not carried out the death sentence since 1976, maintaining an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment.

There are at least 800 people on death row, according to government figures shared with parliament in February, with sentences usually commuted to life imprisonment.

Friday’s judgement at the special fast-track court came after the state appealed against a 2022 High Court decision that acquitted the duo, without calling for defence evidence.  In its ruling, the High Court held that the State Intelligence Service (SIS) had failed to provide specific intelligence regarding the planned attacks and found that the then SIS Director, Nilantha Jayawardena, had failed to properly discharge his responsibilities. The court also ruled that the prosecution had failed to establish the criminal intent required to convict the two accused.

The Attorney General had originally filed 855 charges against the two former officials, alleging criminal negligence and breach of duty in failing to act on advance intelligence warnings.

The court was told during the proceedings that an Indian intelligence agency had alerted Sri Lanka on April 4, 2019, to a possible suicide attack by Islamist extremists, but authorities failed to take action.

The attacks on April 21 that year targeted three churches and three hotels.

More than 500 people were wounded.

Fernando and Jayasundara were arrested in 2019 and held in custody for four months before being released on bail. Under a previous civil action, they had to pay 125 million rupees (an estimated $372,464) as damages to survivors of the attack.

Prosecutors had earlier told the high court that “negligence” by the two top officials amounted to “grave crimes against humanity” and laid murder charges against them.

Both men were eventually convicted of negligence leading to the death of 279 people.

Jayasundara and Fernando had testified to a parliamentary inquiry that then-president Maithripala Sirisena failed to follow established protocols in assessing national security threats ahead of the bombings.

They also alleged that Sirisena – who was also defence minister as well as law and order minister at the time – did not take the threats seriously.

-AFP/ENCL

Editor_1
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