COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday (Jan 12) that inaction by the country’s former president and four others led to Easter Sunday bomb attacks in 2019 that killed nearly 270 people and ordered them to pay compensation for violating the basic rights of the victims and their families.
A seven-judge bench of the top court ordered former President Maithripala Sirisena to pay 100 million rupees (US$273,300) from his personal funds. It also ordered the police chief, two top intelligence officials and the secretary to the ministry of defence at the time to pay a total of 210 million rupees (US$574,000).
Two local Muslim groups that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group were accused of carrying out six near-simultaneous suicide bomb attacks targeting worshipers at Easter services at three churches and tourists eating breakfast at three top hotels.
A breakdown in communication caused by a rift between Sirisena and the then prime minister was blamed for the failure of authorities to act on near-specific foreign intelligence received prior to the attacks, which also wounded about 500 people.
The court said Sirisena, who was also defence minister and commander in chief of the armed forces, had not called regular meetings of the national security council and had omitted key personnel from the meetings he held.
