Easter bombings: Sri Lankan SC orders ex-Prez Sirisena, and others to compensate victims
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The Supreme Court in Sri Lanka has found top government, police, and intelligence officials responsible for “failing to prevent” the 2019 Easter bombings in the island nation and ordered former President Maithripala Sirisena and others to pay millions of rupees as compensation to the victims.
The Islamist serial suicide bombings, the worst-ever attacks in Sri Lanka since the civil war ended in 2009, took place on Easter Sunday in April 2019, targeting three churches and as many luxury hotels across Sri Lanka and killing 270 people.
They were carried out by eight Islamist militants, all Sri Lankan nationals associated with a homegrown extremist Salafi group. Although Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, no direct links were found, the media reported.
Family members of the victims, the Catholic clergy, and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka had filed the case against Sirisena and senior government officials.
Delivering its judgment on Thursday, the Supreme Court ordered former President Sirisena to pay compensation to the victims of the 2019 Easter bombings, in what is the first time the courts have acknowledged the government’s role in the attacks.
The top court found that Sirisena and several other top governments, police, and intelligence officials were responsible for “failing to prevent” the bombings in April 2019, “despite receiving intelligence ahead of the attack.”
The panel of seven judges ordered the former president to pay 100 million Sri Lankan rupees (£220,000) from his personal funds into a compensation fund for victims and their families. In contrast, the former police chief Pujith Jayasundara and former state intelligence services head Nilantha Jayawardene were ordered to pay 75 million rupees each. The former defense minister was ordered to pay 50 million rupees.
Blame for the attacks has been directed towards the former President after it came to light that his government ignored multiple warnings about an imminent terrorist attack weeks before it took place.
In the months before the bombings, then-President Sirisena, who was also the Defense Minister, had been engaged in an open row with his Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe (the current President), which led to a series of failures in national security. A parliamentary Select Committee appointed in May 2019 found that Sirisena was “actively undermining” the government, resulting in the “serious lapses” that allowed the terrorist attacks.
In February 2021, a Presidential Commission of Inquiry recommended that Sirisena and his senior intelligence staff be prosecuted for their failure to prevent the incident, and in September last year, the former President was named as a suspect in a case related to the Easter attacks. Sirisena had, however, pleaded not guilty.
The Supreme Court’s compensation ruling has been welcomed by activists, many of whom accused the government of failing to properly investigate and deliver justice for the attacks. In February 2022, a court acquitted the former defense secretary and the former inspector general of police on all 855 charges of criminal negligence in relation to the attacks.
A prominent human rights activist, Ruki Fernando said the top court’s judgment was “an acknowledgment of the pain, grief, and harm to survivors, victims’ families, and all those affected”.
He said: “It recognizes the importance of accountability of very senior state officials, including the then executive president. This poses a serious challenge to investigators, prosecutors, and judiciary to hold those most responsible criminally accountable.”
The Catholic community, who were among the worst targeted in the bombings, have been particularly critical of the investigation. The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, repeatedly alleged there was a state cover-up. In March 2022, he told the UN Human Rights Council that the incident was a “grand political plot”.
