The Channel 4 documentary is a tirade against the Rajapaksa legacy, says Gotabaya and also defends Salley.

“The Archbishop worked closely with me during the time when I helped with the construction of the Benedict XVI Catholic institution”.

In a lengthy statement over the latest video released by Chanel 4, former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said today that it is mostly an anti-Rajapaksa tirade aimed at blackening the Rajapaksa legacy from 2005 onwards and is a tissue of lies, just like the previous films broadcast by the same channel.

“To claim that a group of Islamic extremists launched suicide attacks in order to make me president is absurd. Despite the politically motivated accusations being made against me by certain individuals, I have personally done everything possible to help the Roman Catholic community when I held government office”, the former president said.

He said that the statement made by Moulana, an applicant for political asylum, about Maj. Gen. Sallay is completely a lie. The story about Maj. Gen. Sallay meeting the suicide bombers in February 2018 is clearly a fabrication,he said.

Rajapaksa said that Sallay was not in the country during this period of time.

The former president said that the police officers attached to the Presidential Commission to investigate the Easter Sunday attacks were not transferred after he came into power.

In any case, there was a gap of nearly seven months between the Easter Sunday attacks and my coming into power, and investigations should have been carried out during that period, he stressed.

Rajapaksa said that the Presidential Commission that looked into the Easter Sunday attacks said in its report that former CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekera was also one of those responsible for the negligence between 2016 and 2019.

After the war ended, I helped in the restoration and reconstruction of the Madhu Church and the Church in Mullikulam. I also helped facilitate the arrangements to invite His Holiness the Pope to Sri Lanka, and I headed the committee formed by the then government to organise the visit.

He said that he played a key role in the construction of the Benedict XVI Catholic Institute of Higher Education in Bolawalana and worked very closely with His Eminence the Cardinal during that period.

President, I ‘sabotaged’ the investigation by transferring officers carrying out the investigation. I assume that this is a reference to the former director of the CID, Shani Abeysekera. Leaked telephone recordings had revealed that he had conspired with a politician to influence the outcome of an ongoing criminal case in the High Court, and he could not be kept in a position of responsibility in the CID under any circumstances by any government. The police officers attached to the Presidential Commission to investigate the Easter Sunday attacks were not transferred after I came into power. In any case, there was a gap of nearly seven months between the Easter Sunday attacks and my coming into power, and investigations should have been carried out during that period. SSP Abeysekera was also one of those responsible for the negligence between 2016 and 2019 mentioned in the Presidential Commission’s report.

Chanel 4 states that when the report of the Presidential Commission to investigate the Easter Sunday attacks was published, I refused to make it public. That is an outright lie. Everyone in Sri Lanka knows that it has even been tabled in Parliament. Last year, when some people started linking me to the Easter Sunday bombings, I instructed Ambassador Mahinda Samarasinghe in Washington to explore the possibility of obtaining FBI or CIA assistance in investigations into the bombings. On April 7, 2022, Christopher A. Landberg of the Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, wrote to Ambassador Samarasinghe, stating the following:

“Thank you for raising with us Sri Lanka’s request for an independent investigation into the Easter Sunday attacks… In the immediate aftermath of the attacks and continuing to the present day, the U.S. government provided assistance in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible, to the point that the Department of Justice filed a criminal complaint in January 2021 against those deemed responsible for the deaths of U.S. citizens. In light of that, even as we stand ready to continue providing support to your government, it would not make sense for the United States to conduct an additional investigation into the attacks. In terms of our cooperation on this case, I would like to highlight that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has worked closely with Sri Lankan law enforcement and, in the week after the attack, deployed approximately 33 personnel to Colombo to assist Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department with all aspects of their investigation. These efforts included evidence collection, witness and victim interviews, and the exploitation of digital devices.

In this letter, Landberg also stated that if any additional requests were made by the Sri Lankan Attorney General, they would be able to provide support from the two U.S. prosecutors who were on the ground in Colombo at that time in April 2022. Earlier on January 8, 2021, the US Department of Justice issued a media release stating, among other things, that:

Three Sri Lankan citizens have been charged with terrorism offences, including conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation (ISIS). The men were part of a group of ISIS supporters that called themselves ‘ISIS in Sri Lanka’. That group is responsible for the 2019 Easter attacks in the South Asian nation of Sri Lanka, which killed 268 people, including five U.S. citizens, and injured over 500 others. Two days after the attacks. ISIS claimed credit for the terrorist acts, attributing the murders to “Islamic State fighters. The criminal case filed on Dec. 11, 2020, in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles is the result of a nearly two-year investigation by the FBI, which assisted Sri Lankan authorities in the wake of the suicide bombings that targeted Christian churches and luxury hotels frequented by Westerners.”

This latest film by Chanel 4 is mostly an anti-Rajapaksa tirade aimed at blackening the Rajapaksa legacy from 2005 onwards and is a tissue of lies, just like the previous films broadcast by the same channel. To claim that a group of Islamic extremists launched suicide attacks in order to make me president is absurd. Despite the politically motivated accusations being made against me by certain individuals, I have personally done everything possible to help the Roman Catholic community when I held government office. After the war ended, I helped in the restoration and reconstruction of the Madhu Church and the Church in Mullikulam. I also helped facilitate the arrangements to invite His Holiness the Pope to Sri Lanka, and I headed the committee formed by the then government to organise the visit. I also played a key role in the construction of the Benedict XVI Catholic Institution of Higher Education in Bolawalana. I worked very closely with His Eminence the Cardinal during that period.