Two top former Sri Lankan security officials have been sentenced to death for their failure to prevent the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks that killed 279 people. Both men have announced plans to appeal their convictions in the Supreme Court.
Former Defence Ministry secretary Hemasiri Fernando and former police inspector-general Pujith Jayasundara have been sentenced to death by a three-judge bench of the Colombo High Court for failing to prevent the devastating Easter Sunday bombings of April 21, 2019. The conviction was decided by a 2-1 margin, with the dissenting judgment reportedly noting that the two accused had no motive to kill and no connections to the actual perpetrators of the attacks.
Their lawyer, Chaminda Athukorale, confirmed that the pair would file an appeal in the Supreme Court within two weeks of the July 31 sentencing. The appeal strategy will likely rely on arguments presented in the dissenting judgment regarding their lack of involvement with the bombing plot itself. Fernando, 76, and Jayasundara, 66, are currently being held in a maximum-security prison in Colombo.
The attacks targeted three churches and three hotels, resulting in 279 deaths including 45 foreigners and more than 500 wounded. Intelligence officials had reportedly warned Sri Lankan authorities on April 4, 2019, about a possible suicide attack by Islamist extremists, but the warning went unheeded. Despite the death sentences, Sri Lanka maintains an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment and has not carried out a death sentence since 1976. According to government figures, there are currently 817 people on death row, with sentences typically commuted to life imprisonment. The two officials had previously been ordered to pay 125 million rupees in damages to attack survivors through civil proceedings.
