Colombo [Sri Lanka], August 2: A Sri Lankan court has sentenced a former police chief and a former Defence Ministry official to death after finding them guilty of criminal negligence for the Easter Sunday bombings that killed 2279 people in 2019.
Former Police Chief Pujith Jayasundara and former Defence Ministry Secretary Hemasiri Fernando were convicted and sentenced in a 2-1 decision on Friday by the three-member High Court bench. The judgements at the special fast-track court came after the state appealed against a 2022 decision that acquitted the duo.
The coordinated bombings in 2019 were carried out at three tourist hotels and three churches - two of them Catholic and one Protestant. A parliamentary committee found that police and intelligence officials failed to act on repeated intelligence warnings of the attacks.
Chaminda Athukorale, lawyer for the two men, said they will appeal the ruling within two weeks. 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, but authorities failed to take action.
Two Sri Lanka-based ISIS-inspired groups were accused of carrying out the bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners, and wounded more than 500 others.
Source: Qatar Tribune
