Sri Lanka will investigate allegations of intelligence complicity in 2019 Easter bombings
The Hindu
Sri Lanka’s government will appoint a parliamentary committee to investigate allegations made in a British television report that Sri Lankan intelligence had complicity in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings
Sri Lanka’s government will appoint a parliamentary committee to investigate allegations made in a British television report that Sri Lankan intelligence had complicity in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 269 people.
A man interviewed in the Channel 4 videos released on Tuesday said he arranged a meeting between a local Islamic State-inspired group and a top state intelligence official to hatch a plot to create insecurity in Sri Lanka and enable Gotabaya Rajapaksa to win the presidential election later that year.
On Wednesday, Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa called for an international inquiry into the bombing attack. “A large majority of the people are of the view that a fair local investigation has not been conducted into this attack," Mr. Premadasa said in Parliament.
Also read | Sri Lanka’s President assures justice for Easter Sunday victims
The lack of a proper local investigation has led to confusion, he added.
Mr. Premadasa stressed that justice should be delivered to the victims of the attack and therefore, there is a need for “a transparent international investigation to find out the truth about this attack.”
The man in the Channel 4 program, Azad Maulana, was a spokesperson for a breakaway group of the Tamil Tiger rebels that later became a pro-state militia and helped the government defeat the rebels and win Sri Lanka's long civil war in 2009. Mr. Maulana said he arranged a meeting in 2018 between IS-inspired extremists and a top intelligence officer at the behest of his boss at the time, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, the leader of the rebel splinter group-turned-political party.
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