Sri Lankan court convicts 15 in 2019 Easter Sunday attacks case

A Sri Lankan court on Tuesday found 15 of the 24 suspects guilty of involvement in the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide attacks, which killed 270 people, including 11 Indians, and injured over 500 others.

The three-judge High Court Trial-at-Bar comprising Judges Navaratne Marasinghe, Ramanathan Kannan and Sujeewa Nissanka acquitted 9 other suspects.

Nine suicide bombers belonging to the local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three Catholic churches and as many luxury hotels on April 21, 2019, killing nearly 270 people, including 11 Indians, and injuring over 500.  

Naufar Moulavi, the main suspect, was among those convicted by the court after the trial, which lasted nearly five years.

A total of 23,270 charges were filed against the accused, while 2,309 witnesses testified for the prosecution. 

The accused were charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) for murder and attempted murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism, aiding and abetting, and possessing and handling firearms and explosives.

A man named Zaharan Hashim, the leader of the National Thowhith Jamaath, himself led the suicide squad which attacked the Easter Sunday mass. 

The attack stirred a political storm as then President Maithripala Sirisena and then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe were blamed for their inability to prevent the attacks despite prior intelligence being made available.

A presidential panel of inquiry appointed by Sirisena after the attacks ironically found the then-president guilty of his failure to prevent the attacks.

Sirisena, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge in the case filed after the panel's findings.