• Pays Rs 12 m shortfall on 16 August

Former President and incumbent Opposition Parliamentarian Maithripala Sirisena has completed the payments of compensation of Rs. 100 million to the victims of the Easter Sunday terror attacks as ordered by the Supreme Court (SC).

Accordingly, it is reported that Sirisena had paid the remaining amount of Rs. 12 million on 16 August, thereby completing the total compensation payment ordered by the Court.

On 12 January of last year (2023), the SC found that Sirisena, former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara, former National Intelligence Chief and Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Sisira Mendis and the former Chief of the State Intelligence Service and incumbent Senior DIG Nilantha Jayawardena have violated the Fundamental Rights (FR) of the petitioners, by failing to take action to prevent the Easter Sunday terror attacks despite receiving sufficient intelligence information. 

As a result, they were ordered to pay compensation to the victims of the Easter Sunday attacks. Accordingly, the SC ordered Sirisena to pay Rs. 100 million in compensation to the petitioners, Jayasundara and Jayawardena were each ordered to pay Rs. 75 million, Fernando was ordered to pay Rs. 50 million and Mendis was ordered to pay Rs. 10 million from their personal money. In addition, the judgment also stated that the State and the Government should pay Rs. one million in compensation to the victims.

The order was issued by a seven-Judge SC bench when delivering its decision with regard to the 12 petitions filed by various parties stating that their FR were violated by the defendants’ negligence and the failure to prevent the terrorist attacks on 21 April, 2019. The 12 petitions were filed by a group of individuals including Nandana Sirimanna, whose two children were killed in the Easter Sunday attacks, tourism entrepreneur Janath Vidanage, three Catholic priests including Sarath Iddamalgoda and attorney-at-law Moditha Ekanayake, who was injured in the bombings at the Shangri La Hotel.

On 15 July, the SC had ordered Sirisena, Jayasundara and Jayawardena, to complete their outstanding compensation payments before 30 August, 2024. Furthermore, the bench had ordered that if the relevant individuals fail to complete the payments before the said date, contempt of court charges will be filed against them before 20 September, 2024.

Sirisena’s lawyers had informed the SC on the same day that Rs. 58 million of the total Rs. 100 million in compensation, which Sirisena had been ordered to pay the victims, had already been paid. Meanwhile, Sirisena had also requested the Court through his lawyers to extend the payment period for the remaining sum by six years. 

However, this request was rejected by the Court which extended the deadline to 30 August. On 11 July 2023, Sirisena completed paying Rs. 15 million as part of the compensation he was ordered to pay to the victims and filed a motion requesting that he be allowed to pay the remaining sum in 10 installments of Rs. 8.5 million from 30 June 2024, to 20 June 2033.

The deadline to complete the relevant compensation payments was initially set for 12 July 2023.