-By A Special Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -14.June.2025, 4.50 PM) Nearly six years after coordinated bomb blasts ripped through churches and hotels across Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing 269 people and injuring more than 500, a case accusing one of the country's most senior former intelligence officials of gross negligence has been fixed for hearing on 14 October.
In a move that could reignite widespread public anger over state accountability failures, the Court of Appeal on Wednesday (12 June) ordered that legal proceedings be resumed against Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (SDIG) Nilantha Jayawardena, the former Director of the State Intelligence Service (SIS). He is accused of willfully ignoring specific intelligence alerts in the weeks leading up to the attacks of 21 April 2019, which targeted Catholic congregations and international tourists in Colombo, Negombo, and Batticaloa.
The petition—filed by Reverend Father Rohan Silva, Executive Director of the Centre for Society and Religion (CSR), and Suraj Nilanga, father of one of the child victims—is being described by legal analysts as one of the most significant accountability tests for post-war Sri Lanka's security apparatus and the political system that enabled it.
The petitioners are seeking a writ of mandamus directing the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and Attorney General to initiate legal proceedings against Jayawardena for dereliction of duty and criminal negligence. They argue that Jayawardena, as head of the SIS, not only failed to disseminate vital foreign intelligence warnings but also actively withheld details from other branches of government and security.
According to evidence reviewed by The Guardian, Indian intelligence services issued multiple alerts as early as 4 April 2019, warning of an imminent terrorist attack by a group affiliated with the Islamist preacher Mohamed Zahran Hashim, a known extremist in Eastern Sri Lanka. One of the most critical pieces of information was provided directly by Lt. Colonel Ravi Mishra, the Indian Defence Attaché in Colombo at the time, who contacted Jayawardena with a stark warning: eight locations, including churches and luxury hotels, had been selected as targets.
Yet the SIS chief delayed issuing a nationwide alert. Despite attending a top-level intelligence coordination meeting on 9 April, Jayawardena told fellow officers he would submit a “special report” at a later time—one that never materialised. Most in the room, including senior military and police officials, were kept in the dark.
Much of the petition rests on the findings of a parliamentary select committee report, published in late 2019, which was scathing in its assessment of institutional failures. The report squarely blamed Jayawardena for a “catastrophic lapse in intelligence sharing,” characterising his conduct as “deliberate, obstructive, and unbecoming of the office he held.”
Among the more chilling revelations in the report:
Zahran Hashim had been under intelligence surveillance since 2015, and an arrest warrant had been issued in March 2017.
By 14 April 2019, police were actively searching for Zahran and his cell.
On 16 April, a motorbike explosion in Kattankudy—interpreted by Jayawardena as a dry run—prompted him to tell other officials: “This is definitely a blast. This is Zahran’s activity. We cannot take it lightly.”
On 20 April, a day before the attack, Jayawardena was again warned by a confidential source that the attacks were imminent, specifying “a church and a hotel where Indians inhabiting a large number” as among the likely targets.
Despite the forewarnings, no evacuations were ordered. No churches were warned. Security at five-star hotels remained routine. “If this is not culpable neglect, what is?” asked Ermiza Tegal, counsel for the petitioners, in court on Wednesday.
Wednesday's hearing before Justices Mayadunne Corea and Mahen Weeraman was procedural but symbolically weighty. After reviewing affidavits and legal submissions, the Court of Appeal fixed the full hearing for 14 October, granting both parties time to prepare additional written submissions.
Representing Jayawardena, President’s Counsel Chandaka Jayasundara pushed back against the petition, arguing that criminal culpability could not be inferred from “a breakdown in institutional communication” during a volatile period. He cited the “unprecedented complexity” of asymmetric terror threats in post-war Sri Lanka and warned against scapegoating career officers in the absence of prosecutorial evidence.
But attorneys for the petitioners were unmoved. “This is not about complexity,” said Tegal. “This is about the fundamental breach of a public duty to protect life. This was not a missed clue. This was a tsunami warning that went unheeded.”
Legal experts say the outcome of this case could set a powerful precedent. Dr. Harendra Coomaraswamy, a constitutional law lecturer at the University of Peradeniya, notes: “This is the first real test of how Sri Lanka’s post-war judiciary handles state accountability for intelligence failures that lead to mass civilian casualties. If the case proceeds, it will be historic.”
For many families of the victims, the renewed legal proceedings come as a glimmer of hope, albeit one tempered by deep scepticism. “We’ve been waiting six years,” said Suraj Nilanga, who lost his 13-year-old daughter in the attack on St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo. “Every time a hearing is scheduled, we pray that this time someone in uniform or a political suit will finally be held responsible.”
The attacks, carried out by suicide bombers affiliated with National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), struck three churches—in Colombo, Negombo, and Batticaloa—as well as three high-end hotels in the capital, including the Shangri-La, Kingsbury, and Cinnamon Grand. The dead included 45 foreign nationals, among them British, American, Indian, and Dutch citizens.
Despite global attention and multiple commissions of inquiry, few top-level officials have been prosecuted. Former President Maithripala Sirisena was found civilly liable by the Supreme Court in a separate fundamental rights case, but no criminal charges have followed.
Father Rohan Silva says the failure to prosecute Jayawardena sends the wrong message: “If the man at the very top of intelligence is not answerable to the law, what faith can people have in democratic oversight?”
The United Nations Human Rights Council has, in successive resolutions, called on Sri Lanka to ensure justice for victims of the Easter attacks and to conduct independent investigations into systemic security failures. The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth and justice, in a 2021 report, noted: “There remains a credible case of state complicity or negligence that merits independent criminal scrutiny.”
Moreover, international Catholic networks, including Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) and Caritas Internationalis, have consistently advocated for transparency in the investigation, echoing claims by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith that the attack may have been “allowed to happen” to serve undisclosed political ends.
For Sri Lanka’s traumatised Christian community—just 7% of the population—the Easter Sunday bombings remain a raw wound. Many survivors report ongoing psychological distress, and several children orphaned by the blasts remain under state care.
Church leaders have long insisted that true healing cannot occur without justice. Speaking last week at a memorial service, Cardinal Ranjith reiterated that the “truth behind the failure” remains elusive: “We know who planted the bombs. But we still do not know who allowed the plan to succeed.”
The SDIG Jayawardena case, then, is not merely about past errors. It is about the future: whether the Sri Lankan state will commit itself to the rule of law, or continue shielding its most powerful actors behind the fog of institutional opacity.
The October hearing will determine whether the Court of Appeal finds sufficient grounds to order the Attorney General to initiate a full criminal trial against Jayawardena. If it does, he would be the highest-ranking intelligence officer in Sri Lankan history to face such legal scrutiny.
In the meantime, the CID has reopened its own parallel investigation into intelligence failures, and multiple civil society groups have submitted new witness testimonies and declassified documents obtained via whistleblowers.
The government, for its part, has maintained a conspicuous silence. The Ministry of Public Security declined to comment on the case. The Attorney General’s Department also refused to answer questions about whether it intends to file independent charges under public pressure.
For victims like Suraj Nilanga, however, the path forward remains painfully simple.
“We are not asking for revenge,” he said. “We are asking for answers. And for the people who failed us to face the law like anyone else would.”
-By A Special Correspondent
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by (2025-06-14 11:33:29)
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