Deadly Cost of Inaction

In a dramatic court verdict on July 31, the Colombo Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar sentenced former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara and former Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Hemasiri Fernando to death over their failure to act on intelligence warnings of the impending Easter Sunday attacks which shook Sri Lanka on April 21, 2019. The judgment was, however, divided. Presiding Judge Priyantha Liyanage and Judge Thilakarathna Bandara convicted the two former officials, while Judge Viraj Weerasuriya held that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt. Jayasundara and Fernando are expected to appeal (Sri Lanka has maintained a moratorium on the death penalty since 1976). Therefore, the importance of the July 31 judgment does not necessarily lie in sending people to the gallows but in establishing the fact that senior public officials can be held criminally responsible when their failure to perform their duties contributes to loss of lives. It may be recalled that soon after the attacks, Jayasundara and Fernando became subjects of scrutiny for obvious reasons. Jayasundara then was the country's highest-ranking police officer and Fernando held the seniormost administrative position in the Defence Ministry. Warnings Before Attack The case against Jayasundara was built around a series of intelligence communications sent to him between April 9 and 21, 2019. Seven preceded the first explosion, while the eighth arrived after the attack had commenced. By April 20, an intelligence input indicated that an attack could occur on or before Easter Sunday and that churches and five-star hotels were among the likely targets. Further, investigations revealed that the majority concluded that Jayasundara, as Inspector General of Police (IGP), had failed to take the measures expected of the officer legally responsible for preventing crime and protecting the public. Fernando, meanwhile, was accused of failing to use his position in the Defence Ministry to bring the relevant institutions together. The majority held that he could have convened intelligence officials, consulted the Armed Forces and pushed the security establishment to respond to the threat. Both defendants rejected the suggestion that they had deliberately allowed the attacks to happen. In other words, there was a complete absence of coordination. Jayasundara told the Court that he had been treated unjustly and had performed his duties to the fullest extent possible. He also said that more senior or directly responsible officials had been allowed to escape accountability. Fernando argued that he had been the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, not the Minister of Defence. Questions Of Authority These arguments raise valid questions about the distribution of authority within the security establishment during the Yahapalanaya Government. By late 2018, the Government was dysfunctional due to the political conflict between President Sirisena and then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Relations between the President and senior members of the Government had deteriorated to such an extent that Wickremesinghe was not invited to NSC briefings. The statements made by Fernando have also raised questions about the conduct of former State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director Nilantha Jayawardena, who had received the original intelligence. On November 5, 2024, a five-member Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Preethi Padman Surasena, Yasantha Kodagoda, Kumudini Wickremasinghe, Mahinda Samayawardhena and Arjuna Obeyesekere held that, given the gravity and complexity of the case, the High Court should have called for the defence. It ordered the trial to continue. Had the Supreme Court allowed the original acquittals to stand, the case would have ended without the defence being heard. The judge who headed that Supreme Court bench was Preethi Padman Surasena, who is now the Chief Justice, having assumed office in July 2025. Accountability Matters The 2019 Easter bombings were a series of coordinated suicide attacks in Sri Lanka carried out by local Islamist extremists, targeting three Christian churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, 2019, killing 279 people, including 45 foreign nationals, and injuring over 500. The perpetrators were suicide bombers linked to the local group National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ), pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, and led locally by Zahran Hashim. Advance warnings provided by foreign intelligence, including India, weeks prior were ignored or not acted upon by top security leadership, which speaks poorly of the intelligence and security establishments. Now that this judgment is pronounced, it is very likely to trigger debates on the accountability of the intelligence community failing to act upon specific preventable inputs. It would also be interesting to know if such a landmark judgment will send a strong message as a deterrent to the concerned agencies the world over, and future terror misadventures of similar occurrences could possibly be prevented. Whatever the outcome, this milestone verdict merits an in-depth analysis by those in the judicial and security fraternity. Views expressed are personal. The writer is a retired IPS officer, Adviser NatStrat