• Archbishop calls for suspension of implicated Police/Intelligence officers in prior   

The Catholic Church of Sri Lanka called for an impartial, broad-based investigation into what the controversial Channel 4 documentary revealed and the involvement of an independent international investigation team assisted by domestic officials for investigations.

Speaking at a press conference held yesterday (6) in the wake of a documentary being aired by the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 News on Tuesday (5) titled Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings – Dispatches which made shocking revelations including the alleged involvement and complicity of certain Government officials in orchestrating the terror attacks, the Colombo Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith said that all those officials who are in the Police and the intelligence services coming under investigation on the matter and who hold high positions should be suspended forthwith in order to make the new investigations transparent.

Furthermore, the Church held that that international team should be assisted by all those Sri Lankan officials of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) whose services were originally sought out by the Government but who were subsequently transferred away from the investigations to other areas and posts by biased political authorities.

“Any such officials named in the Channel 4 programme should move out of their present positions in order to ensure the independence of the inquiry. We urge that Senior Deputy inspector Generals of Police (SDIGs) Nilantha Jayawardena and Deshabandu Tennekoon who had neglected their duties as per the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) report should be suspended,” he said.

The Archbishop further stated that the Church has no faith in yet another Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) or a CoI which could be a waste of public money and time and which would mislead the public. “We noticed a Minister saying in the Parliament that they are going to appoint a PSC to look into matters revealed by the particular documentary. But, if these people had wanted to bring justice to those who died from the attacks, they could have implemented the recommendations given by the previous PSC, the Committee Chaired by the retired Supreme Court Judge, Justice Vijith Kumara Malalgoda, and the relevant CoI. But, they did not. Therefore, we have no faith in yet another,” he said.

In response to a recent statement by the Public Security Minister Tiran Alles that 99% of the Easter bombings investigations have been concluded so far, the Archbishop denied the statement, claiming that the Church and Its legal team who are referring to the CoI report have identified many areas that have not even been touched by the officers, and that hence, the statement is baseless.

The controversial documentary is a nearly 50 minute long video with serious allegations about the attacks based on the testimonies of highly placed whistleblowers who alleged that Governmental officials were complicit. The main whistleblower Hanzeer Azad Maulana was a spokesman for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s breakaway group Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pullikal led by current State Minister of Rural Road Development Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan. According to the documentary, Maulana, who has sought asylum in Switzerland after facing fraud charges here, has presented his testimony to the United Nations Human Rights Council and has also been interviewed by European intelligence agencies. Claiming that he had, on the directives of Pillayan, arranged a meeting between the then Army intelligence chief, Major General Suresh Salley and the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) members including its Leader Zahran Hashim, Maulana said that the plot to create insecurity in the country to pave the way for former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to win the Presidential Election later in 2019 was hatched over two to three years.