Easter Sunday terror attacks probe: Police chief’s statement
COLOMBO: The bomb attacks on Easter Sunday in 2019 were not isolated criminal activity orchestrated by Zahran Hashim and his group within a short period of time, Inspector-General of Police C.D. Wickramaratne said.
Delivering a special statement on the progress of the investigations into the incident, the IGP stated that several events that led up to the carnage – including the time bomb attack on a house in Kattankudy, murder of two constables on duty at Vavunativu roadblock, Buddhist status vandalism in Mawanella and recovery of explosives from Wanathawilluwa – indicate that it was pre-planned.
Previously, these incidents were probed as isolated incidents, the IGP pointed out, adding that the lack of coordination between the investigating units led to a missed opportunity to reveal the connection between the events. The investigating officers failed to realize that these were the doings of a terrorist organization that was a threat to the national security, he noted.
IGP Wickramaratne said, at the initial stage of the inspections, then-CID officers failed to conduct an in-depth investigation into the incident as they were aiming to identify the suspects soon to wrap it up within a short period of time.
“They tried to conclude the probes assuming that most of the attackers are dead, all who had direct links to the incident were arrested and that all their assets were confiscated.”
According to the IGP, the previous investigating bodies had also assumed that a self-motivated pro-ISIS group in the country had acted independently, without foreign involvement.
Thereby, the investigating bodies of the Criminal Investigation Department, Terrorism Investigation Division, Sri Lanka Police and police intelligence units have been restructured, as new appointments came into effect.
IGP Wickramaratne stated that previous investigating officers had analysed only telephone conversations four months leading up the attacks while the new teams studied more than 100,000 telephone conversations since June 29, 2014.
In addition, the attorney general, upon the request of the IGP, has appointed a team of several senior lawyers of his department to provide legal advices to the police teams probing the attacks, due to the complexity of these investigations.
Under the new investigating bodies, 723 suspects were arrested in connection with the bombings, however, 311 of them have been further detained or remanded for interrogations.
Meanwhile, indictments have been filed against 46 suspects, the IGP said.
He added Rs. 365 million in cash and assets belonging to terrorists and aiders and abettors of the deadly attacks have been confiscated so far while cash and property worth Rs. 168 million were banned.