Former Military Intelligence Director Brig. (Rtd) Chula Kodithuwakku informed the Presidential Commission of Inquiry that the group behind the Easter Sunday attacks were apparently funded by state intelligence agencies, former CID Director Shane Abeysekara alleged. pic.twitter.com/YyaMHNWh3K
— NewsWire (@NewsWireLK) September 26, 2024
Former director of Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), retired SSP Shani Abeysekara, has called for the immediate release of two commission reports concerning the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which claimed the lives of over 250 people.
Speaking to reporters Abeysekara stressed the need to make the commissions’ findings public so as to further investigations and uncover the truth. He made these statements at the launch of a book written by journalist, Sunanda Deshapriya, which alleges that Sri Lanka’s military intelligence deliberately misled the CID during their investigations and raises serious concerns over the intelligence service’s financial ties with the attackers.
Abeysekara maintains that the Easter Sunday attacks were not isolated events but instead part of a wider conspiracy. His claims echoes that of Sri Lanka’s own Parliamentary Select Committee (OSC) which raised concern that Sri Lanka’s security forces had permitted the attack to “create chaos and instil fear” ahead of the 2019 presidential elections which saw the ascendancy of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The Channel 4 documentary on the matter also supported this claim and spoke with Sri Lanka’s former director general of police, Ravi Seneviratne, who claimed that Gotabaya Rajapaksa had acted to “prevent the investigation”. The documentary further alleges that an intelligence officer with close ties to the Rajapaksa clan met with the members of the local islamist group, National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), which carried out the attack. Abeysekera also claimed that one of the suicide bombers, who died in Dehiwela, had ties to Sri Lanka’s military intelligence.
In his address to the media, Abeysekara also pointed to the murder of men in Vavunathivu in 2018, which Sri Lanka intelligence attempted blame on former LTTE cadre. He claimed that Sri Lanka’s intelligence services went so for as to plant a military jacket to bolster their narrative.
“On four occasions, the head of military intelligence insisted that the Vavunathivu murders were done by the LTTE”.
He stressed it was only after the CID investigated the matter that they were able to arrest a suspect and recover weapons related to the Vavunathivu killings. The suspected arrested was linked to group responsible for the Easter Sunday bombings and led by the extremist preacher, and leader of the NTJ, Zaharan Hashim.
Additionally he detailed how a senior military intelligence officer testified before Sri Lanka’s Presidential Commission, and had confessed to financial ties between the intelligence services and the attackers.
Abeysekara further criticised former presidents Maithripala Sirisena and Gotabaya Rajapaksa for obscuring the investigation. Upon becoming president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa removed Abeysekera from his position in the CID. In 2023, Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal reported that intelligence agencies had uncovered an alleged plot to assassinate him by intentionally causing an accident while he was travelling. Abeysekara concluded the conference expressing hope that the newly elected NPP government will pursue a thorough investigation and break from the previous government’s pattern of evading full transparency and accountability.
