In a letter addressed Monday to the president of Sri Lanka,
Catholic leaders criticized the “lethargic pace” of a government inquiry into
coordinated terrorist attacks on churches that took place on Easter Sunday
2019, and questioned why recommendations brought by an official inquiry into
the attacks have not yet been acted upon.
The July 12 letter was signed by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of
Colombo, as well as several other bishops and nearly 30 priests. The signers
gave the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, one month to respond to the letter.
More than 260 people died and over 500 were injured in the
coordinated suicide bombings on three churches, four hotels, and one housing
complex on Easter Sunday in April 2019. Several of the bombings took place amid
Masses and services.
Foreign intelligence warned the government ahead of the
bombings, but a power struggle and a communication breakdown between the
then-president and prime minister reportedly led to a failure to coordinate a
security response.
In the July letter, the signers noted that in the two years
since the attacks, the nation’s attorney general has failed to bring charges
against numerous officials whose negligence, in part, allowed the attacks to
occur.
They also questioned whether the current 42 suspects in the
case include the masterminds of the attack, warning that the “big brains”
behind the attack may be escaping justice.
Cardinal Ranjith noted that the nation’s former attorney
general had described the bombings as a “grand conspiracy,” and Ranjith
demanded that the matter be fully investigated and that the findings be shared
with the public.
“[I]f truth and justice cannot be assured in a satisfactory
manner in this matter by the Government and this issue is dealt with rather
superficially, we will be forced to agitate for such through alternative
means,” he concluded.
Cardinal Ranjith did not specify what those alternative
means might be, but he has discussed the possibility of street protests in the
past.
Sri Lanka is an island nation in the Indian Ocean of more
than 21 million people, of which some 1.5 million are Catholic, constituting
the overwhelming majority of Sri Lanka’s Christians.
Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa won election in
2019 while promising to find the truth of the attacks. His government previously
accused a Muslim clergyman, who had been arrested after the attacks, of being
the organizer, while Catholic leaders rejected this claim and suspected foreign
involvement.
Today, the attacks are believed to have been carried out by
two local radical Islamist groups, including National Thowheeth Jama’ath, who
had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
The Presidential Commission of Inquiry completed its final
report in February 2021 but did not release its findings to the public.
Instead, Rajapaksa appointed a new six-member committee to
study the report without first sharing it with the Church, or with the attorney
general to prosecute suspects.
Cardinal Ranjith obtained a copy of the COI report the
following month, Asia News reported.
Among the COI’s findings was what it described as “criminal
liability” on the part of then-president Maithripala Sirisena, who left office
in November 2019 and is now a member of parliament, and recommended that the
attorney general draw up charges against him. No such criminal proceedings have
yet taken place.
Several other government and law enforcement officials were
indicted in the COI report as “criminally liable” in the attacks, but the
letter notes that these officials have not been charged and in some cases have
received promotions— a situation the signers of the letter called “totally
unacceptable and amounts to a ridiculing of the rule of law.”
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“It is also an act of callous disregard and of inhumanity
towards those human beings who lost their precious lives in the attacks and
those who were maimed for life and the suffering caused to their families,” the
signers wrote.
The Archbishop of Colombo has been pushing for Sri Lankan
authorities to be held responsible for failing to prevent the bombings
following the completion of the COI’s report.
In October 2020, five of seven suspects arrested in
connection with the attacks were released by the government, on the stated
grounds of lack of evidence.
At that time, Cardinal Ranjith said security officials had
confirmed to him that there was sufficient evidence against many of the
suspects who had been arrested. The cardinal, along with friends and family of
the victims, have said they fear the release of the suspects meant corruption,
or a lack of a thorough investigation, on the part of the Sri Lankan Criminal
Investigation Department.
In April 2021, in commemoration of the second anniversary of
the attacks, Cardinal Ranjith spoke at St. Anthony’s Shrine, along with Hindu,
Buddhist, and Muslim leaders. The service included prayers and two minutes of
silence in remembrance of the dead.
Catholic News Agency
Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Colombo - SRI LANKA
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