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In his petition to the Supreme, Court Shani Abeysekera details how his attempts to investigate the NTJ and Zahran were thwarted by several obstacles, many months before the Easter attacks. The details contained in the petition, now available in the public domain, make interesting reading and are mind-boggling and can only add fuel to the many conspiracy theories that are circulating.
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The second interesting development last week was a decision by a three-judge Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar to acquit former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundera and former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando. They were charged with actions amounting to negligence which enabled the perpetrators to carry out the attacks.
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What is concerning about this verdict is that both Jayasundera and Fernando were each charged with more than 800 offences. Yet, the court acquitted the duo of all those charges without even calling for defence submissions
The government’s handling of the 2019 Easter Sunday terrorist attacks just got a whole lot messier last week.
The attacks, staged almost simultaneously across several locations in the country including churches and star class hotels, cost at least 269 lives. Now, it is threatening to cost this government its credibility-or whatever is left of it- and raises even more intriguing questions.
It is not possible to view the Easter attacks as an isolated, ‘one-off’ incident. It must be reviewed in a socio-political context because the events before and after the attacks and the political climate at that time are inextricably linked.
April 2019 was just six months after the constitutional crisis triggered by then President Maithripala Sirisena when he arbitrarily dismissed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his Cabinet and swore in his erstwhile rival Mahinda Rajapaksa and a Cabinet of Rajapaksa loyalists.
That ‘government’ lasted 51 days before Sirisena was chastised by the Supreme Court, his actions being deemed unconstitutional, compelling him to re-install Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister. That saga ended only in mid-December 2019. By that time, relations between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe were irrevocably damaged, a key factor in the events that followed the Easter attacks.
Days after the attack, Gotabaya Rajapaksa who until then was acting all coy about being a presidential candidate, proclaimed that he was ready to ‘save the nation’ once again from terrorism, providing voters with a reminder of his role as Defence Secretary in the final Eelam war.
There were several inquiries into the attacks. Days after the attack, Sirisena appointed a three-member committee headed by a judge to inquire into the attacks. This was followed by a Parliamentary Select Committee as well as a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI), the latter again appointed by Sirisena.
The PCoI appointed by Sirisena recommended that criminal proceedings be initiated against him. By the time the Commission handed over its report, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was President. However, despite all the breast-beating about punishing those responsible for the attacks during his presidential election campaign, Sirisena remains a ruling party parliamentarian, unscathed by legal proceedings.
There has been speculation that the contingent of fourteen Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MPs which Sirisena leads and which contributes significantly to the ruling coalition’s two-thirds majority in Parliament was the factor which prevented the Rajapaksas from acting against Sirisena.
It is against a backdrop of all these political considerations that last week’s developments become most interesting.
First came the bombshell revelations contained in submissions made to the Supreme Court by retired Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Shani Abeysekera.
In a petition before the Supreme Court which seeks to prevent his arrest, Abeysekera claims that an attempt is being made to falsely implicate him, alleging that he had been derelict in his duties in investigating the National Thowheed Jama’aath (NTJ) and the mastermind of the Easter Sunday attack, M.H.M. Zahran.
In his petition, Abeysekera details how his attempts to investigate the NTJ and Zahran were thwarted by several obstacles, many months before the Easter attacks. The details contained in the petition, now available in the public domain, make interesting reading and are mind-boggling and can only add fuel to the many conspiracy theories that are circulating.
The second interesting development last week was a decision by a three-judge Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar to acquit former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundera and former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando. They were charged with actions amounting to negligence which enabled the perpetrators to carry out the attacks.
What is concerning about this verdict is that both Jayasundera and Fernando were each charged with more than 800 offences. Yet, the court acquitted the duo of all those charges without even calling for defence submissions.
In doing so, they also made some very pertinent observations. The judges noted that the Attorney General had to be careful when pressing criminal charges against an individual and that the arrest of the two men were highly problematic. It was unacceptable to file cases against government servants alone when politicians were above them, they said. These observations are a virtual slap in the face of the Attorney General.
There are many implications of this judgment. It adds credence to the theory that the prosecution of Jayasundera and Fernando was a witch hunt where the former officials were cast in the role of sacrificial lambs to save the political skins of others.
The government, which had conveniently sidestepped the issue of prosecuting Sirisena (as recommended by the PCoI) for its own convenience is now faced with a dilemma. With Jayasundera and Fernando acquitted and Sirisena still roaming free, the question remains as to who is responsible for the Easter attacks?
The third interesting issue to emerge last week was Arch bishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith’s statement that the Church would canvass international support to obtain justice for the victims of the Easter attacks with the help of the Vatican.
“The plans cannot be revealed yet, but something is being organised,” Cardinal Ranjith told the media on Tuesday. “If we cannot find a solution within the country, we will try going through international organisations.”
“If we do go international,” the Cardinal, who commands a strong following among Catholics and immense respect among non-Catholics in the country said, “the government alone must take responsibility for that, because it is the government that has not paid an iota of attention to this. We cannot accept that.”
All these developments appear to coalesce into the Easter attacks becoming a major challenge for the government- just as it was a significant stepping stone for Gotabaya Rajapaksa to ascend to the Presidency in late 2019, invoking the fear of a resurgence in terrorism.
It is clear now that at the very least, the government has bungled its investigations and not brought the real culprits to book. The concern in most quarters though go beyond that: there is now genuine concern as to why the whole truth is not being made available to the public.
It is an issue that will surely come back to haunt the current regime as many citizens of Sri Lanka want to know the facts behind the Easter attacks, the truth that has remained elusive some thirty four months and three separate inquiries later
