Sri Lanka Easter Sunday blasts case verdict set for mid-September

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FILE - Sri Lankan Army soldiers secure the area around St. Anthony Shrine after a blast in Colombo on April 21, 2019. | Photo Credit: AP

The Colombo High Court has set September 22 as the date for the verdict on the main criminal case in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings , which killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners.

The bombings were a series of coordinated suicide attacks on churches and luxury hotels in the island nation on April 19, 2019.

At least 25 accused were charged for their role in the bombings. The three-member trial bar on Monday (August 24, 2026) said the verdict against the accused would be delivered on September 22. The proceedings in the case were held for 547 days with 2,309 witnesses.

As one of the suspects died, 24 suspects were indicted in October 2021.

On the Easter Sunday of 2019, suicide bomb attacks were carried out by the local jihadi group NTJ on three main churches and three leading five-star hotels in Colombo.

Mohammadu Ebrahim Mohammdu Naufer alias Naufer Moulavi was cited as the principal suspect.

His links to extremist Zaharan Hashim, the leader of the Muslim radical group, were investigated. Hashim was one of the suicide bombers who carried out the blast at the Shangri La Hotel.

Early this month, former police chief Pujith Jayasundera and Hemasiri Fernando, the then top bureaucrat in the Ministry of Defence, were handed the death sentence after being found guilty of criminal dereliction of duty for failing to act on prior intelligence that could have prevented the attacks.

Former President Maithripala Sirisena and the top defence hierarchy were ordered to pay multiple millions of rupees as compensation to the kith and kin of the blast victims in the fundamental rights petitions verdicts delivered in 2023.

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