(Speech delivered, in Colombo, by His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith at the Seventh Year Commemoration of the Easter Sunday Bomb Victims)

Most Venerable Omalpe Sobitha Nayaka Thero, Ven. Sirs, Most Rev. Dr. Andrzej Józwowicz, Apostolic Nuncio in Sri Lanka, Most Rev. Dushantha Rodrigo, Bishop of Colombo of the Anglican Church, Most Rev. Anton Ranjith, Auxiliary Bishop of Colombo and the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Batticaloa, His Excellency Andre Franchè, Permanent Representative of the United Nations in Sri Lanka, Rev.

Kannan Kurukkal of the Hindu Community, dear Moulavi Rev. Masook Shajeer, dear Rev. Fathers, brothers and sisters, family members of the Easter 2019 attack victims, Your Excellencies, members of the Diplomatic Corps, Hon. Ministers, Members of Parliament, Distinguished guests and beloved brethren,

TERROR ATTACKS

I wish to first of all thankfully welcome all of you who have accepted our invitation to join us in this 7th Anniversary commemoration ceremony of the Easter Sunday bomb attacks which took place on 21st April 2019. We are aware that due to these destructive attacks 278 people lost their lives and more than 500 people received injuries which harmed them seriously or partially. It also rendered a severe blow to the economy of Sri Lanka and dangerously disturbed the atmosphere of reconciliation and unity that was by then painstakingly established between the different religions and ethnic groups in the aftermath of the 30-year war. St. Anthony’s Church, Kochchikade, where we are now gathered, St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya, in Negombo, Zion Church of the Pentecostal Communion in Batticaloa, Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Shangri-La Hotel Colombo, Kingsbury Hotel and Tropical Inn Hotel in Colombo were the scenes of the seven bomb explosions that caused a serious bloodbath killing or maiming fully or partially the innocent worshipers in the Churches and the tourists and staff in the tourist hotels. We cannot but remember that, among the dead there were 68 children. There were 45 tourists from 14 countries who also lost their lives.

HIDDEN AGENDA

That there was a subtle but sure attempt to again create ethnic and religious disharmony in the country through these bomb attacks became clearer to us from the fact that having realised that their attempts to create inter racial and religious disturbances in the aftermath of these attacks had miserably failed due to the constant appeals made by religious leaders for calm, these plotters organised provocative attacks on the Muslim community in the Negombo Poruthota area two weeks after the April 21st attacks, on the night of the 5th May and, once again, on the 11th, 12th and 13th May starting from the Nattandiya-Madampe area, through Kotaramulla to Minuwangoda, throwing stones at Muslim houses and setting Muslim establishments on fire. One Muslim devotee was killed. The Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Easter attacks has, in its final report, in volume one, Chapter 27, spoken extensively of these subsequent provocations. The report has clearly stated that certain Police officers and security personnel had neglected their duty and had done nothing much to control the situation during these sad second series of incidents. I wish to affirm that it is equally important to investigate as to who organised these subsequent attacks. This may have a link to the main attacks on 21st April 2019. One must also verify as to whether anyone in the security establishment prevented those responsible from controlling these attacks as and when they began. In any case looking at these subsequent provocations at creating ethnic strife, one can conclude that some people who disliked the religious leaders’ move to calm down the atmosphere after the Easter attacks, wanted to somehow create strife among the religious and ethnic communities by these subsequent provocations. In this regard, we observe that the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, too, has gone on to identify several persons involved in these post-Easter Sunday attack violent incidents in the aforementioned Chapter 27, who should be further investigated, as there is a real possibility that such acts were linked to the main attack.

In any case we have to gratefully affirm that, it is due to the deep commitment of the Most Venerable Ittepane Dhammalankara Maha Nayaka Thero, the head of the Kotte Chapter of the Siyam Maha Nikaya, and Ven. Omalpe Sobitha Nayaka Thero, who is present here with us today, who joined me in appealing for calm constantly then, over repeated press conferences given, that we succeeded in preventing any violence from breaking out in the aftermath of these bomb attacks.

CULTURE OF MURDER

What we, who organising this commemoration, ask of all those in authority is to kindly inquire into these attacks with severity and seriousness and to reveal to us as to who really was behind them. We state so in the light of the fact that in Sri Lanka, over several past decades, there had come into being a dangerous tendency to let murder, disappearances and political assassinations be buried in the sands of time without any proper investigation or inquiry. This nationally disastrous policy which began in the ’70s, still continues to haunt us as a nation. It is a very sad situation indeed. The rule of law, which had been gradually weakened over this period, especially through political interference, had become a slave of selfishness, political bankruptcy, enthroning of falsity and criminality. The tragedy of all of this, is the spreading of falsity in order to suppress the truth, daring to challenge uprightness and lawfulness within a culture of corruption, leading society into a situation where holders of wealth and power determine the truth and enjoy all the benefits thus leading society into a vortex of evil and the country into a situation of serious moral and spiritual hypocrisy and decay. In this background where values have lost their importance, affecting social discipline and resulting in the deterioration of the most important value of respect for the rule of law, sense of discipline, respect for human life and dignity, civilized and principled behaviour are all seen to be moving away from our society.

What is most distressing is the fact that political leaders had developed a culture where they instrumentalised the security establishment to get them to do illegal acts, violating all codes of decency and good order.

In such a situation searching for the truth, behind some of the major acts of violence and terror that have marked our recent history, has become extremely difficult and cumbersome. An honest search for the truth behind some of the murders, disappearances and acts of corruption has become extremely difficult due to political interference and lying. Even though there is constitutional support for the faithful execution of the law, due to the fact that the institutions guiding these processes are run by people who think and act politically, abusing their freedom and authority, truth will never emerge and often looks so unreachable and distant. We face a question as to whether these institutions or persons handling the search for the truth and manning them do ever comprehend the untold pain that the victims of this violence continue to experience. We do not understand how some people can become so cruel as to do everything in their power to block or obstruct or even willfully seek to mislead these investigations with their own politically motivated fairy tales.

What is surprising is that, when investigations on several of the other past murders and assassinations, as well as disappearances, are also being conducted, some people who have never spoken about those investigations seem to be super interested in airing out their own so called presentations and views on the Easter Sunday 2019 attacks all the time. It is the only matter on which they seem to be active. We ask them why? Is it because of a fear that the truth may finally be found and it is likely to hurt them? What I see in these interferences is an attempt to hide the truth or to sabotage the investigations from taking their objective path. The attempt by these forces, who seem to represent certain political orientations, to block the investigators, from conducting their search for the truth freely, from questioning important players behind the Easter attacks, from engaging in a search for the truth behind new revelations that have surfaced lately, is to be clearly condemned. The attempt by some people to present their own theories concerning these attacks neglecting the possibility that there could have been other hands behind these attacks is also to be flatly rejected. The Easter attacks need to be investigated in all their different aspects, nuances, new revelations, contradictions in evidence that seems to disapprove a purely one-sided analysis. The insistence by one particular political orientation in Sri Lanka to lay the blame only on one group of people, ignoring all the contradictory evidence that has since emerged, is indicative of a certain fear on their side that if all the evidence is sifted through a more complex picture, involving the past political leaders of the country in this attack, could emerge. Else one cannot understand as to why the people representing these political orientations are so excited about the manner in which these investigations are now being conducted.

OTHER ELEMENTS

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry which investigated the Easter Sunday 2019 massacre

, mentioned in its final report that due to time constraints and other factors it could not look into some of the matters that needed special attention. Among these as indicated in the first volume of their report – pages 93-94, the Commission calls upon the authorities to investigate into the role of “Abu Hind” in the plot. On this matter the Commission in the same volume quotes Hadia the wife of Zahran Hasheem, whose evidence is reported in the 17th Chapter of the first volume, pages 218, 219 and 220 and pages 82 and 222. In that statement, Hadiya mentioned that each time her husband was on a call with this “Abu Hind” he asked her to leave the place. The Commission report also affirms that this person, “Abu Hind,” was mentioned again by the then Director of State Intelligence, Nilantha Jayawardena, in his own evidence before the Commission [First Volume p. 218]. And so, it is important to further investigate and find out who this secretive person “Abu Hind” was and whether he had any connection to the Easter Sunday attacks. Indeed, the Commission report does call upon the CID to investigate this matter further [ref. Volume 1 p. 222].

Second, the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry has decreed as follows on the matter concerning Sarah Jasmin, the wife of Hashtoon, the bomber who blew himself up at St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya: “the COI received evidence of two witnesses who testified that Sara was seen alive after the Easter Sunday attacks and had fled to India. In her testimony Hadiya said that after the blast at Sainthamaruthu on 26th April 2019, she lost consciousness. After she regained it, she could faintly hear a voice of a woman which sounded like Sarah. The DNA analysis with the mother of Sarah did not establish that Sarah had died in the blast. In view of this testimony the COI recommends that investigations into Sarah be continued ….” [p. 223, PCOI Final Report Vol. 1].

Another riddle to be solved on this matter is that of verifying if any higher up political or security figure was involved in ordering repeated DNA tests on the alleged piece of spinal bone found at the site of the Sainthamaruthu blast seeking to attribute it to Sarah and to conclude that indeed she died in that blast and did not survive, as alleged by other evidence including that of Hadiya, the wife of Zaharan. Finding out as to what really happened to Sarah after this blast is important as she is said to have known a lot of information about these attacks as the wife of one of the main suicide bombers, Hashtoon.

Third, it has been mentioned in evidence on 16th December 2020 before the PCOI by Chief Inspector Sampath Kumara that all data in the cellular phone and the laptop handed over by the then SIS Director Nilantha Jayawardena to the CID had been found to have been deleted. This is a serious matter and one has to investigate as to whether the said officer Nilantha Jayawardena deliberately erased off all these vital data in order to hide facts pertaining to the attacks and if so why he did that. Further, one needs to investigate thoroughly as to why this same officer tried to mislead the public on the murder of the two policemen at a check point in Batticaloa [Vavunathivu] seeking to protect Zaharan’s group who were the real authors of that murder which was, however, wrongly attributed by Jayawardena to an ex-LTTE cadre. One has to find out as to who prompted this officer to mislead the investigations into these murders and why?

Fourth, it is extremely important to find out as to why, when certain high up officials of the Police and the Security establishment were warned about these attacks several times, by the Indian intelligence services, well ahead of time, they did not take any effective action to prevent them and whether there was a superior involvement in this their gross inaction.

Fifth, it has been reported that the FBI investigations had handed over to the CID, the Internet Protocol [IP] address of a person who spoke frequently with Zaharan Hasheem and “when this person was arrested and was being questioned by the officers of the CID, the then Director of Military Intelligence, Brigadier Chula Kodithuwakku was sent by the Ministry of Defence to prevent the CID from detaining and questioning this person stating that since this person’s activities are a part of a secret military intelligence operation and it would affect national security, he cannot be questioned.” [No. 59 of the FR Petition presented by Shani Abeysekera before the Supreme Court]. We need to find out as to why and who blocked that investigation from proceeding. Who sought to protect the Military Intelligence and the Ministry of Defence from being investigated and why. We demand answers for that too.

Sixth, it has been found by now that the person who had used a pen name called “sonic-sonic” and had been in close contact with a person called “Matale Zaharan” or “Podi Zaharan”, had induced the latter to call a top level member of the ISIS overseas with whom he was in touch and plead with them to claim ownership for the Easter Sunday attacks in order to cover up the real authors behind these attacks. Why was this officer of the State Intelligence Service keen to get the ISIS to claim ownership of the attacks? Still intriguing is the fact that when investigations on the role of “sonic-sonic” or IP Bandara were proceeding the State Intelligence Service intervened urging the CID not to investigate this further as it was a matter of national security. Who then decided that contacts between State Intelligence and the ISIS was a matter of national security and why? We need to study this issue, too.

Seventh, it is necessary to investigate the matter concerning an instruction purported to have been given by the then DIG Deshabandu Tennakoon via telephone to two police officers who had sought to check the contents of a suspicious lorry exiting the Gelanigama gate of the southern highway and to let it pass through. The call had been given at 3.00 a.m. in the morning of the 5^th April 2019. Why was the DIG himself giving these instructions and at that hour? What was being transported? Where was it going to in Panadura? Were the contents of that lorry transported elsewhere before or after the attacks? Where was it transported to from Panadura? It is known that Zaharan Hasheem and his team were staying at a rented house in Walana, Panadura, before the Easter attacks.

THE PAIN OF THE VICTIMS

It has to be affirmed at this point that all these years the families of those who lost their loved ones are in deep sorrow and pain, coming to us often sharing such pain with us and asking us as to when they will know the truth about those who perpetrated this crime. Since then there have been two committees and a Presidential Commission that conducted inquiries. Several smaller level committees, too, were appointed. And it is five years since the 1^st volume (containing recommendations) of the Presidential Commission was published. The other volumes however, are still a secret.

And so in this kind of secretiveness the search for truth has become a cause of deep pain to all of us. Since most of those who died were Catholic faithful, and since these attacks took place in our churches, on our most holy day, Easter Sunday, the search for the truth behind these attacks becomes our basic right, that of the victim families as well as of the Church. The search for all those responsible for these murders and destruction is a right not only of the victims but of all of us, citizens of this country, and it is the duty of those in charge of the country to render justice to us on this in a fair and transparent manner.

HIDING THE TRUTH

It has to be sadly affirmed that, unlike the present leaders of the country, almost all the power holders since these sad incidents in 2019, including former Presidents, Heads of the Police and the AGs department officials instead of sincerely finding out as to who and what was behind these dastardly attacks, tried their best to confuse the public, muddle up the investigations and appointing all kinds of committees with highly suspect investigators in order to come out with conclusions crafted by them, tried to sabotage the truth from emerging.

The incumbent government that came to power in 2024 is indeed taking a more positive attitude with regard to the Easter massacre. Yet certain officials of the “deep state” are seeking to obstruct the smooth flow of these investigations. For example, in spite of the fact that the PCOI had given clear directives to the Attorney General and to that department to take clear legal and disciplinary actions against some of the political figures, officials of the security establishment and organisations for criminal neglect of duty, very little has so far been done on this matter by them.

At the same time, what is emerging through the latest investigations pointing to the involvement of some top-level officials of the security establishment in these attacks, especially from evidence found in the British Channel Four TV programme, need to be courageously explored. This kind of investigation seems to have rubbed a raw nerve among certain political groups who are reacting to these in a most revealing way, revealing the possibility that these investigations are indeed on the right track. These politically oriented reactions seem to be the result of a certain fear and anger at the possibility that they too might be exposed in some way.

And this also means that if anyone, sitting in high positions in any area of life be it in the political arena, the security establishment or in the commercial field, if found to have had any link should be called upon to give evidence or be prosecuted without considering the service they rendered in the past. No person is above the law and cannot go unpunished if found to have been involved even if that person has served the country with dedication earlier. Such persons indeed are expected to behave better even after their actions of heroism. If a good person does an evil deed he is accountable for that. Our call to investigate, question, hold to account anyone involved is not a condemnation of everyone else involved in that service.

If an official of the security establishment is involved in a crime he, too, is liable before the law. To interpret bringing before the law of any such security official as betrayal of one’s country, is totally lop sided and wrong. Truth and justice overrides all such petty considerations and we strongly condemn the instrumentalisation of such a false sense of patriotism by certain parties in this case. We want to know the truth in its totality and that is our right.

On 6th October 2024, His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka on a visit to St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya, pledged to a gathering of Easter attack victims and well-wishers of their families that he will not allow

“the sands of time to bury the truth“ behind these attacks and so we call upon him to make that promise a reality by conducting a full, transparent and truthful investigation into these murders and to reveal the truth behind this brutal massacre courageously.

OUR PRAYER

Here we draw strength in the faith we profess. Justice belongs to the Lord. The blood that was shed was of innocent men, women and children which cries out to heaven for justice. The Lord we know will surely heed this prayer somehow, someday.

He will surely render us justice. Until then our struggle will continue.

We are grateful to every one of you for the fraternity you show us in this pursuit. We wish you God’s abundant blessings.