Sri Lanka’s high courtroom orders ex-prez, 4 others to pay Rs 310 mn for failing to forestall 2019 Easter assault

Sri Lanka’s high courtroom ordered ex-president Maithripala Sirisena and 4 high former officers to pay a complete of 310 million rupees as compensation to the victims of the 2019 Easter assault.

Colombo,UPDATED: Jan 13, 2023 10:12 IST

Nine suicide bombers linked to ISIS carried out a sequence of devastating blasts that tore by way of three Catholic church buildings and as many luxurious accommodations on April 21, 2019. (File photograph/AFP)

By Press Trust of India: Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered ex-president Maithripala Sirisena and 4 high former officers to pay a complete of 310 million rupees as compensation to the victims of the 2019 Easter assault for his or her negligence in stopping the nation’s one of many worst terror strikes regardless of having credible intel of an imminent assault.

In its verdict, a seven-member bench of the apex courtroom dominated that the respondents named within the petitions for failing to forestall the 2019 Easter Sunday assault had violated the basic rights of the petitioners.

The courtroom ordered the then president Sirisena, who was additionally defence minister and commander in chief of the armed forces, to pay a compensation of 100 million rupees (USD 273,300) from his private fund.

It additionally ordered former police chief Pujith Jayasundara and former state intelligence providers chief Nilantha Jayawardene to pay a compensation of 75 million rupees (USD 204,975) every, former defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando to pay a compensation of fifty million rupees (USD 136,650) and former nationwide intelligence service chief Sisira Mendis 10 million rupees (USD 27,330).

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The courtroom stated high officers didn’t act on the detailed intelligence info shared by India to avert the lethal suicide bombings.

They have been ordered to pay from their private funds to the sufferer fund maintained by the workplace of reparations.

The apex courtroom should be reported inside 6 months on the fee of compensation.

The bench stated Easter Sunday was just some weeks away when the intel concerning the imminent assault got here from India. Still, the officers failed to indicate alertness or perceptiveness to hold out any measures to safeguard church buildings throughout the nation.

The bench additionally requested the state to take disciplinary motion towards Jayawardena.

Nine suicide bombers belonging to native Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS carried out a sequence of devastating blasts that tore by way of three Catholic church buildings and as many luxurious accommodations on April 21, 2019, killing practically 270 folks, together with 11 Indians, and injuring over 500.

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The assault stirred a political storm because the then President Sirisena after which Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have been blamed for his or her lack of ability to forestall the assaults regardless of prior intelligence being made obtainable.

As many as 12 petitioners, together with the kin of the victims, the Catholic clergy, and the attorneys’ physique Bar Association of Sri Lanka, filed the basic rights petition towards the then president for his negligence in stopping the assaults that proved deadly for the island nation’s financial system primarily depending on tourism.

A presidential panel of inquiry appointed by Sirisena after the assaults paradoxically discovered the then-president responsible of his failure to forestall the assaults.

Sirisena, nonetheless, pleaded not responsible to the cost within the case filed after the panel’s findings.

The head of the native Catholic Church, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, continued to precise his dissatisfaction over the probe within the matter, claiming that the investigation was a cover-up.

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Published On:

Jan 13, 2023