Two ex-Sri Lanka officials sentenced to death over 2019 Easter bombings

Former officials will appeal sentences handed down for neglecting intelligence warnings before the deadly attacks.

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 260 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.

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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 on Saturday they will appeal the ruling within two weeks.

“The dissenting judgment explains why the two accused had no motive to kill and no links with the actual perpetrators of the bombings,” Athukorale told the AFP news agency.

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.

Under a previous civil action, Fernando and Jayasundara were ordered to pay 125 million rupees ($372,464) in damages to survivors of the attacks.

Sri Lankan Catholics hold banners standing on the side of a road during a silent march to mark the fourth year commemoration of the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks on Catholic Churches, in Colombo, Sri Lanka [File: Eranga Jayawardena/AP]

Sri Lanka Easter bombings

Two Sri Lanka-based ISIL-inspired groups were accused of carrying out the Easter Sunday suicide bombings, and none of those believed to have been directly involved are living. Separate trials are taking place for people allegedly connected with the perpetrators.

The attacks killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners, and wounded more than 500 others.
Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church has claimed that those identified so far as perpetrators are not the masterminds behind the bombings, and that there was a bigger conspiracy behind the attacks.

A death penalty in Sri Lanka typically means life in prison because the country has had a moratorium on executions since 1976.

Current President Anura Kumara Dissanayake supports maintaining the moratorium.

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.