Allegation of intelligence complicity in blasts to be probed

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s government will appoint a parliamentary committee to investigate allegations made in a British television report that Sri Lankan intelligence had complicity in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 269 people.

Labor Minister Manusha Nanayakkara told Parliament that details on the investigation will be announced soon.

A man interviewed in the Channel 4 videos released Tuesday said he arranged a meeting between a local IS-inspired group and a top state intelligence official to hatch a plot to create insecurity in Sri Lanka and enable Gotabaya Rajapaksa to win the presidential election later that year.

Azad Maulana was a spokesman for a breakaway group of the Tamil Tiger rebels that later became a pro-state militia and helped the government defeat the rebels and win Sri Lanka’s long civil war in 2009.

Rajapaksa was a top defense official during the war, and his older brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had been defeated in the 2015 elections after 10 years in power.