Sri Lankan Prime Minister, and accused war criminal, Mahinda Rajapaksa, issued a statement which maintained that the Easter Sunday bombings which claimed over 250 lives could have been prevented.
In his statement, he compared the Easter Sunday attacks to Sri Lanka’s 30-year genocidal war against Tamil separatism. In contrast to the war, Rajapaksa claims that Sri Lanka’s intelligence service had advanced warning from India of the attacks.
“The intelligence service of a friendly country had provided advance warning to the then Sri Lankan government of the possible dates and targets of the attacks, and the names, addresses, identity card numbers and even telephone numbers of the terrorists involved. Therefore, this attack could easily have been prevented,” Rajapaksa stated.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s statement on the Easter Sunday bombing placed blame on the previous administration stating;
“It is most unfortunate that the mechanisms that were in place to ensure national security were dismantled”.
According to a Sri Lankan parliamentary report, security forces did receive intelligence prior to the attack but may have allowed it to proceed in order to “create chaos and instil fear” ahead of presidential elections.
Read Mahinda Rajapaksa’s full statement here and Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s statement here.
