Editorial

Gnats and sledgehammers

Published

2 years ago

2023/04/30

Dr. Nihal Jayawickrama, now retired in Sri Lanka, wrote an article we published on this page last Sunday questioning why this country needed a “monstrosity of a Bill ostensibly to combat terrorism when the government for several decades already had at its disposal a law with sufficient flexibility to prevent and deal with all forms of threats to the security of our country and its peoples.” This law is the Public Security Ordinance enacted by the then State Council before Independence which has since been used by governments of all political complexions to deal with Emergency situations and ensure the maintenance of public security and the preservation of public order as well as supplies and services essential to the life of the community.

The controversial Anti-Terrorism Act, teeming with many obnoxious provisions, which has now been gazetted but not yet presented to Parliament is clearly an attempt to deal with a post-aragalaya situation that may in the future threaten the government’s existence. The regime is therefore seeking to arm itself with draconian laws to deal with protests, street demonstrations and agitations of the sort which last year compelled the resignations of both President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. Although the heat and tempo of the protests today is not what it was last year, thanks to the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration being able to address issues such as the petrol/diesel and cooking gas shortages, as well as the fertilizer issue that drove farmers to the streets, many matters yet remain unresolved. These can be a potential powder keg although a semblance of normalcy has now been restored. Government obviously seems to be wanting to arm itself against such an eventuality and by all accounts is using the proverbial sledgehammer to kill a gnat.

Whether the proposed Anti-Terrorism law, which some believe is a distillate of laws enacted in the UK and the U.S. following the London bombings and 9/11 is an overkill or not remains to be seen. Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, the father of the gazetted Bill, has indicated a willingness to water down some of its harsher provisions during the process of its enactment. It is likely that it will also be challenged before the courts and a determination must be awaited. The government commands a comfortable SLPP majority in the legislature, and there is no risk whatever of laws it presents to Parliament being defeated. Given the attacks on the property of government MPs including their homes and political offices during the terminal stages of the aragalaya last year, a large number of government MPs affected will surely be staunch supporters of the proposed legislation.

A major problem besetting the government today is the lack of trust between itself and the people. The people believe that much of what the government does is for its own good rather than for the good of the people. It now looks certain that the local elections that were due and were aborted by the device of starving the Elections Commission of the wherewithal to hold that poll, is unlikely this year. The Wickremesinghe – Rajapaksa combine which went through the pantomime of handing in nominations was under no illusion about how it would perform. A countrywide defeat was very much on the cards for what its opponents call the Ranil – Rajapaksa government. Most analysts and commentators were of the view that such an election would have redounded best for the JVP-led NPP anxious to send a signal to the electorate that it was well placed to succeed in at a national election down the road.

It now appears that the President is likely to seek an elected term of office for himself once he serves out the balance Gotabaya term. He is constitutionally empowered to dissolve Parliament any time he now wishes and that is a gun that he holds against the SLPP’s head. He is unlikely to pull the trigger because his UNP, unless it mends fences with the SJB, will be unable to make a respectable showing at any parliamentary election in the near term. In any event he will be hard put to credibly explain to the country how a parliamentary election, the last thing most incumbent MPs want, will be affordable if local elections are not.

The government has been under pressure both internationally and locally to repeal the PTA. It has given undertakings in Geneva to do so but has, in fact, used its provisions to deal with even the post-aragalaya situations. It will become clear in the near term whether the government will press on with the ATA as gazetted or dilute some of its harsher provisions. The fact that the Public Security Ordinance is strong and flexible enough to deal with challenges down the road has been credibly urged by Dr. Nihal Jayawickrama in his already mentioned article last Sunday. He has pointed out that among critical challenges faced by different government in our contemporary history, the Hartal of 1953, the communal conflict of 1958, the Bandaranaike assassination of 1959, the abortive coup d’etat of 1962 and the JVP insurrection of 1971 among others were adequately addressed using the provisions of the Public Security Ordinance (PSO).

Among the more obnoxious features of the proposed ATA are provisions relating to powers granted to DIGs Police for detention of persons. Today there are over 30 DIGs in various parts of the country. Older readers would remember a time there were only four and a single SP headed the police in each of the nine provinces. The politicization of the police is a malady besetting the country today and strengthening their hand on matters such as detention would mean strengthening of political hands. It must also be remembered that the numbers of police and security forces today is streets ahead of what they were when national security problems were addressed using Emergency laws under the PSO in the past. This would mean that such laws can be more effectively enforced today than in the years gone by.

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Editorial

Waiting for Godot?

Published

1 hour ago

2025/04/23

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wednesday 23rd April, 2025

A four-member committee has been appointed to study the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) that probed the Easter Sunday terrorist bombings (2019). It comprises a Senior Deputy Inspector General (Chairman), the DIG of the CID, Director of the CID and the Director of the Terrorism Investigation Division. It is reported to have set up several subcommittees. Based on new evidence that may emerge, fresh investigations will be launched, the Police Media Spokesman has said.

Thus, the NPP government, too, has chosen to kick the can down the road, so to speak. All signs are that the committee and its subcommittees will take a month of Sundays to study the PCoI report, and fresh investigations to get underway on the basis of their findings and observations could go on until the cows come home.

What impact will the PCoI report have on the police investigations that have been going on into the Easter Sunday carnage for years? If the police have not already drawn on the PCoI findings and observations in probing the terror attacks, their investigations are likely to be delayed further until the conclusion of the perusal of the document.

One may recall that in August 2021, the Catholic Church demanded credible answers, within one month, to questions regarding the Easter Sunday tragedy. Its ultimatum, given in a 20-page letter, prompted the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government to have the then IGP C. D. Wickramaratne issue a special statement explaining why the probe into the Easter Sunday terror attacks had been delayed. He found fault with those who had handled the police investigations previously.

Wickramaratne’s statement, which shed light on the sorry state of affairs in the CID and other investigative branches of the police, warrants the attention of those who seek justice for the Easter Sunday carnage victims expeditiously. Wickramaratne said the police probes into the terror attacks had been riddled with flaws. Investigators had been in an inordinate hurry to make the bombings out to be the work of a handful of extremists with links to ISIS, and no serious attempt had been made to get to the bottom of the carnage, he said, claiming that they had also taken great pains to prove that all those involved in the terror attacks had been either killed or arrested. Some police officers handling investigations had acted irresponsibly, said Wickramaratne, noting that certain ego-driven investigators had tried to conclude the probes fast, and claim the credit for that; their approach had adversely impacted the criminal investigations.

The PCoI report had been referred to the Attorney General for necessary action, Wickramaratne noted, claiming that the previous investigations had been characterised by a total lack of coordination among the investigation teams, who worked in water-tight compartments. That fact had become evident from the way some incidents had been probed before the Easter Sunday bombings, IGP Wickramaratne said, pointing out that their interconnectedness had gone unnoticed.

Some other factors IGP Wickramaratne adduced to explain the delays in the police investigations in question were the process of ascertaining information from the countries where some suspects were living, and the gathering of evidence pertaining to telephone conversations from 24 June 2014 and analysing them to determine when the dissemination of extremist ideas began in this country and how extremism developed. Among those who aided and abetted the perpetrators of the Easter Sunday attacks were some educated persons and professionals, and given their calibre and social standing, investigations had to be carried out thoroughly if they were to be successfully prosecuted, Wickramaratne said, claiming that it had taken four years to bring those responsible for the bomb attack on the Dalada Maligawa in 1998 to justice, and investigations into the suicide bomb attacks on a religious ceremony held by a mosque at Akuressa in 2009 had taken seven years. The police had been able to carry out those investigations free from pressure, he said.

Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa has gone on record as saying that the task of disclosing the masterminds behind the Easter Sunday terror attacks should be left to the CID and the judiciary. The government, which promised to name the terror masterminds itself, has made another about-turn! With the investigative process marked by delaying tactics, inaction and deflection, it may not be unreasonable to say that at this rate, justice for the victims of Easter Sunday carnage may be galactic years away.

Editorial

Endless probes and conspiracies

Published

1 day ago

2025/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

Tuesday 22nd April, 2025

The sixth anniversary of the Easter Sunday carnage has passed, yet the government has failed to fulfil its pledge to make an earth-shattering revelation about the masterminds behind it. Instead, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has handed over to the CID all volumes of the final report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) that probed the 2019 terror attacks.

The PCoI has not recommended that its complete report be handed over to the CID. It has requested the President to send ‘a complete set of the report to the Attorney General to consider institution of criminal proceedings against persons alleged to have committed the said offences’.

Interestingly, the PCoI report the President has sent to the CID contains some key findings that run counter to the government’s contention that there was a political conspiracy behind the carnage. The report says in Chapter 32: “The original plan of Zahran was to attack the Kandy Perahera. But it was advanced due to the recovery of explosives from Wanathawilluwa and international factors. IS was losing ground in Syria and Iraq and called on its faithful to launch attacks. He was also concerned that the law enforcement authorities may apprehend him soon” (p. 467).

There is a vital document that President Dissanayake should hand over to the CID. It is the report of the Imam Committee, which probed the allegations made in a Channel 4 programme, ‘Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday bombings – Dispatches’, telecast on 5 Sept., 2023. That presidential committee comprising former Judge of the Supreme Court S. I. Imam (Chairman), former Commander of the Sri Lanka Air Force Air Chief Marshal Jayalath Weerakkody and President’s Counsel Harsha A. J. Soza, has debunked a much-publicised claim by a person named Azad Moulana that there was a link between Sri Lanka’s military intelligence and Zahran’s terror group.

Some critical aspects of the Easter Sunday terror attacks have not been investigated thoroughly. One may recall that three months after the tragedy, Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, reportedly said, at St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya, that the terror attacks had been part of an ‘international conspiracy’. Media reports also said he had lashed out at President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for lacking the courage to resist the foreign conspiracy to destabilise Sri Lanka. As we pointed out yesterday, he is one of the key witnesses who said in their testimonies before the PCoI that probed the Easter Sunday carnage that there had been a foreign hand/conspiracy behind the terror attacks.

Meanwhile, in a leaked audio clip of what is described as a telephone conversation between Deputy Minister Rajan Ramanayake and SSP Shani Abeysekera, during the Yahapalana government, about the Easter Sunday terror attacks, the latter is heard telling the former something in Sinhala to the effect that Mohamed Ibrahim, a wealthy businessman who was a JVP’s National List nominee for the 2015 general election, cannot be so stupid as not to have known what his two sons, who carried out suicide bomb attacks on 21 April 2019, had been doing. If this audio recording is not fake, the CID should go by Abeysekera’s contention, and interrogate Ibrahim again as part of their efforts to identify the terror masterminds. One may recall that when Ishara Sewwandi, a female accomplice of the gunman who killed underworld leader Ganemulle Sanjeewa in a courtroom at Hulftsdorp, went into hiding, the police arrested and grilled her mother and brother. The question is whether the NPP will allow its former National List candidate to be interrogated.

The government and the CID must peruse all reports on the Easter Sunday terror attacks thoroughly, keep an open mind and follow evidence wherever it leads if the integrity of the ongoing probe is not to be undermined. Politically motivated timeframes must not be imposed on criminal investigations.

Editorial

Easter Sunday carnage probe: More questions than answers

Published

2 days ago

2025/04/21

Thilina Walpola

Monday 21st April, 2025

The sixth anniversary of the Easter Sunday terror attacks, which claimed about 270 lives and left more than 500 persons injured, falls today. Those who have lost their near and dear ones in the tragedy are still crying out for justice. There have been four Presidents and three governments since the savage terror attacks, yet the search for the masterminds behind them is still ongoing.

A few weeks ago, the incumbent NPP government had the public believe that it would reveal something earth-shattering about the terror masterminds soon, but it is now humming a different tune. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has reportedly handed over the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) that probed the Easter Sunday terror attacks to the CID. We thought the CID had received it much earlier!

There have been more questions than answers regarding the Easter Sunday terror attacks, with a host of claims, counterclaims, about-turns, conspiracy theories, and above all, partisan politics complicating both the investigative process and the quest for justice.

There are two main schools of thought in respect of the Easter Sunday carnage. One insists that the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ), which carried out the bombings, was used by some politicians and intelligence bigwigs loyal to them to achieve a political goal whereas the other claims that the NTJ led by Zahran Hashim unleashed terror at the behest of the ISIS. The proponents of the first school of thought have been influenced by a call made by a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) that probed the Easter Sunday carnage, in 2019, for further investigations to ascertain whether there had been an attempt ‘to create and instil fear and uncertainty in the country in the lead-up to the presidential election to be held later in the year’. Their opponents have offered a different narrative.

On 19 May 2021, the then Minister of Public Security Sarath Weerasekra told Parliament that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had confirmed that Moulavi Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamad Naufer was the mastermind behind the Easter Sunday attacks. He said so in response to a statement made by Attorney General Dappula De Livera the previous day that there had been ‘a grand conspiracy’ behind the terror attacks.

Maithripala Sirisena, who was the President at the time of the Easter Sunday bombings in 2019, has said that he conveyed some vital information about the tragedy to the government. He has refused to reveal it to the public, and the government has chosen to remain silent on his claim. BBS General Secretary Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera has said he knows who the Easter Sunday terror mastermind is, but he will divulge that information only to the President and the Defence Secretary. When Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, who was a member of the PSC that probed the Eastern Sunday carnage in 2019, was in the Opposition, he told BBC that according to ‘investigative evidence’ he was privy to, India had been behind the terror attacks. He is now the Cabinet Spokesman. It will be interesting to know the other government leaders’ position on his allegation. Curiously, the CID has not recorded a statement from him on his very serious claim.

Meanwhile, the aforesaid PCoI report contains a Chapter on evidence given by eleven prominent persons, who categorically stated they believed that there had been a foreign hand or conspiracy behind the Easter Sunday carnage. Those witnesses are Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, former President Sirisena, former Minister Rauff Hakeem, former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, former Governor Azath Salley, SJB MP Mujibur Rahman, former SIS Director SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena, former STF Commandant M. R. Latiff, former Chief of Defence Staff Ravindra Wijegunaratne, former SDIG CID Ravi Seneviratne and former CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekera. Claiming that their statements were mere ipse dixits (assertions made but not proven), the PCoI report has said that no such foreign link was found (p. 472). The Commission should have dug deeper before arriving at such a conclusion. It has, however, recommended that certain identified parties be further investigated. This has not been done. Some of the aforementioned witnesses have since made public statements that contradict their testimonies before the PCoI, and they owe the public an explanation.