says FBI, Australian Federal Police have concluded their probes with no new findings

By Rathindra Kuruwita

State Minister of Defence Pramitha Bandara Tennakoon said in Parliament on Thursday (21) that ‘Sonic-Sonic’ was the code name given to a local intelligence official, who was entrusted with extracting information from the National Thawheed Jamma’ath (NTJ).

Abu Hind was an official attached to a foreign intelligence service.Sonic-Sonic and Abu Hind were individuals who had been in contact with NTJ and ISIS, according to previous investigations into the Easter Sunday attacks.

Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith and the Catholic Church had been misled by certain groups about the Easter Sunday attacks, and there was a sustained effort to discredit the security forces, Tennakoon said.

The State Minister said that by 2018, there had been two arrest warrants against National Thawheed Jamma’ath (NTJ) leader Zahran Hashim, but police had not arrested him.

“Let’s talk about some other matters. In recent times, the name ‘Sonic’ has come up many times in Parliament. This is a code name. The intelligence services need to find out information about various groups that pose threats to Sri Lanka. Our intelligence services are on it 24/7. Sonic is an intelligence officer. There is nothing to hide. He entered the terrorist ring and extracted information. Sonic pretended to be a terrorist because that is the way one inserts oneself into terrorist groups,” he said.

Tennakoon said that an intelligence officer who is trying to win the trust of a terror group can’t reveal what his real purpose is.

“Intelligence agencies will do this again if there is a future threat. How can you ask an intelligence officer to undertake such an assignment again? This is a country that wants to slander and arrest such people.”

The State Minister said some MPs have asked how intelligence officials visited the house of Abdul Latheef Mohamed Jameel aka Abu Hamsa, who blew himself up at the Dehiwala Tropical Inn, prior to his suicide.

“Officials went to every place they have any inkling of. Jameel went to Turkey in 2014, planning to go to Syria. However, he couldn’t make it to Syria. He returns and makes contact with Australian ISIS members.”

There are many stories about Sara Jasmine, the wife of Hastun, too, he said. From 02 February 2019 to 19 April 2019, she was with Zahran’s group, and on 26 April she was at the NTJ safe house in Sainthamaruthu raided by the security forces, Zahran’s wife has told courts, the State Minister said.

“On three separate occasions, DNA tests were carried out to identify those who were killed at Sainthamaruthu. On 28 April 2019, samples were taken from 16 bodies for DNA testing. On 07 June 2019, the government analyst said that four samples had expired, and samples were taken again from these bodies. There were rumours that this was not Sara’s body and that she escaped the raid on the safe house.

Issues like the neglect of investigators, the fact that they had not taken samples from body parts strewn about, and the expiration of samples led to these rumours. There was an explosion, and there were body parts everywhere. We couldn’t initially find Sara’s body from the samples we had taken. But later, 83 samples were taken, and we found a match for Sara. We must admit that there has been professional negligence by investigators,” he said.

Tennakoon also spoke about Abu Hind, a person who played a similar role as Sonic-Sonic. A lot of terrorist organizations have now shifted their operations online, he said. Abu Hind is the code name given to an official of a foreign intelligence service who engaged NTJ through digital means, he said.

“We have also exposed foreign intelligence assets. We expect these agencies to help us in the future, too. Various parties are demanding foreign investigations. The FBI and Australian Federal Police (AFP), with the help of the Maldives, have carried out an investigation and handed over a report to the IGP. So, already, two international agencies have concluded their investigations here.

The FBI has identified Nawfer Moulavi as the mastermind of the attacks. They informed us in April 2022, that they had concluded the investigations. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) last year told IGP C.D Wickramaratne that they also do not have any pending reports or conclusions on the attacks. AFP said they have concluded the investigations,” he said.The State Minister said that his address was one of the last of the day, and only one Opposition MP and one government MP were present at the time he made the speech.