Colombo: Sri Lanka’s president said Thursday that he has received the final report of an inquiry commission investigating the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks and vowed he will not allow anyone responsible for the deaths of more than 260 people escape justice.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa did not disclose what’s in the report, saying only that he had already given instructions to implement its recommendations.
We will not allow those responsible for designing and enabling this tragedy to escape justice. We will never allow extremism to raise its head again, in this country, he said in his address marking the country’s 73rd Independence Day.
Two local Muslim groups that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State were blamed for the coordinated suicide bombings in six places on April 21, 2019. More than 260 people, most of them worshippers at Easter services in three churches and foreign and local holidaymakers having breakfast in three hotels, were killed.
Political infighting leading to a communications breakdown between the then president and prime minister was cited as a cause for the security lapse despite near specific foreign intelligence warnings.
Both former President Maithripala Sirisena and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe were summoned before the commission.
The attacks, which came after 10 years of peace following the end of a quarter-century civil war, enabled Rajapaksa to win the presidential election later in 2019 on a platform of national security and protecting the interests of the country’s majority Buddhist Sinhalese.
