24 indicted in Colombo High Court Easter attacks

Trial to begin on 23 Nov.

By AJA Abeynayake

The Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar yesterday served charges on 24 accused indicted over the Easter Sunday terror attacks.

When the case was taken up before the court yesterday, the hearing was fixed for 23 Nov.

The court has issued summons on 25 defendants in the case who are in custody to appear before the court yesterday, but only 24 defendants were produced before the court as one of the suspects had contracted Covid-19.

The charges against him are to be served later.

A special three-member panel of judges was appointed last month to hear the case.

The Chief Justice has appointed High Court Judges Damith Thotawatte, Amal Ranaraja and Navaratne Marasinghe to the three-member bench to hear the cases filed against the defendants in connection with the suicide bombings in which over 270 people, including foreign nationals, were killed.

Colombo High Court Judge Damith Thotawatte chairs the three-judge bench. The setting up of the special Trial-at-Bar at the Colombo High Court came following a request from Attorney General Sanjay Rajaratnam to Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya.

Police had previously filed 23,270 charges against 25 defendants in the case including Naufer Maulavi, Sajid Maulavi, Mohamed Milhan, Sadiq Abdullah, Aadam Lebbe, Mohamed Sanasdeen and Mohamed Rizvan.

The charges filed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act include conspiring to murder, aiding and abetting, collecting arms and ammunition, and attempted murder.

Nine suicide bombers belonging to local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS carried out a series of blasts that tore through three churches and several luxury hotels, killing over 270 people and injuring more than 500 people on April 21, 2019.

The Attorney General’s Department has already filed two separate cases against the former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and former IGP Pujith Jayasundara, who are accused of criminal negligence of their duties and failure to prevent the Easter Sunday attacks due to neglecting to take proper action on prior intelligence alerts on the impending attacks.

The Colombo High Court on Friday (01) served charges on former IGP Jayasundera and former Defence Secretary Fernando.