Former Army Chief Senanayake exposes failure of Sirisena, Ranil, NSC, CID, TID

By Rathindra Kuruwita

Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had not taken National Security seriously or fully cooperated at the National Security Council (NSC) meetings, former Army Commander Mahesh Senanayake on Wednesday (7) told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) investigating the Easter Sunday attacks.

Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) had given prior warnings about National Thowheed Jamaat (NTJ) and Zahran Hashim and the threat they posed to National Security in 2018. However, no official at the National Security Council (NSC) had taken these warnings seriously, he said.

During the Digana riots the DMI had warned of possible threats which Zahran could pose in the future.

“The DMI asked relevant officials to arrest Zahran after those riots, but none of them heeded warnings.”

Senanayake said that Zahran had been preaching IS ideology according to information received by the DMI in 2018. The DMI had informed the NSC that Zahran was encouraging Muslim youth to embrace the IS ideology.

Senanayake said that former President Maithripala Sirisena, too, had been aware of the situation since 2018. Commissioners then asked the witness why the security forces had failed to take necessary action against Zahran and his associates.

“There was a lot of competition among investigation agencies and they did not cooperate with the DMI when they conducted inquiries. If the institutions with power to enforce the law had arrested Zahran, the terror attacks would not have happened.”

The commissioners then asked the witness what institutions had not cooperated with the DMI.

The former Army Commander said that investigations units attached to the Police, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) had acted in an uncooperative manner.

When the Wanathawilluwa jihadist training camp was raided, the CID could have obtained the support from the DMI because the DMI had a huge network that could have assisted the inquiry, the ex-Army Chief said.

“Information being revealed at this Commission on Zahran and his associates is not new to me. We had been providing such information even before Easter Sunday attacks.”