Sri Lanka's Additional Solicitor General has criticized the practice of forwarding critical security communications with minimal annotation, citing lapses that preceded the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
The Additional Solicitor General President's Counsel Dileepa Peiris has called for a fundamental shift in how senior officials handle sensitive intelligence, arguing that the practice of simply annotating documents with "FNA" — For Necessary Action — is inadequate for matters of national security.
Peiris referenced the lead-up to the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks to illustrate the problem. According to his account, intelligence provided by the then State Intelligence Service chief on April 9, 2019, was forwarded by then Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara to four divisions, including the unit overseeing VIP security. However, the communication bore only the "FNA" notation, which Peiris suggested represented an insufficient response to a serious security threat.
The case against former officials highlighted the consequences of this approach. The Attorney General's Department subsequently filed 855 charges against former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and former IGP Jayasundara, alleging they failed to take adequate action despite having prior warning of the attacks. Peiris used this precedent to argue that officials must assume personal responsibility for acting on critical information rather than treating document forwarding as a sufficient discharge of their duties.
Peiris's comments reflect broader scrutiny of accountability mechanisms within Sri Lanka's security establishment, suggesting that procedural reforms may be needed to prevent similar intelligence failures in the future.
