A committee has been established by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to look into claims made by British media outlet “Channel-4” regarding the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
S.I. Imam, a retired justice of the Supreme Court, will serve as the Committee’s chair, according to the President’s Media Division (PMD).
The other members of the Committee are retired Air Force Commander A.C.M. Jayalath Weerakkody and Harsha A.J. Soza PC.
‘Channel 4’ said in a video it released in September that it had conducted exclusive interviews with high-ranking informants who claimed that some Sri Lankan government officials were involved in the bombings.
Azad Maulana, the former spokesperson for the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), the political party of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan, the state minister for rural road development, is one of the whistleblowers in the film.
In the ‘Channel 4’ video, Azad Maulana said that Easter Sunday bomber Zahran Hashim and the chief of the State Intelligence Service, Suresh Sallay, had a meeting in the East, and that he had been there. He also claimed that he had been present at the meeting.
State Minister Pillayan rejected any connections to the Easter Sunday assaults or the bombers after the video’s broadcast, claiming that such claims are unfounded.
In the meantime, President Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Sri Lankan government were urged by His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo, to launch a thorough, independent international investigation into the alleged plan behind the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
The need for an investigation that is “free, impartial, just, transparent, and broad” was highlighted by Cardinal Ranjith. He maintains that an independent international team should carry out the probe.
The Channel 4 video makes the major accusation that the Easter Sunday suicide bombings were facilitated on purpose to set the stage for the election of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in November 2019.
In response to the accusations, Gotabaya Rajapaksa stated that the most recent video produced by Chanel 4 is primarily an anti-Rajapaksa tirade intended to undermine the heritage of the Rajapaksa family starting in 2005 and is a tissue of lies similar to the earlier films aired by the same Channel.
He said that it is ludicrous to assert that a group of Islamic fanatics carried out suicide bombings in an effort to elect him president.
