Former President Maithripala Sirisena has claimed that Sri Lanka is powerless to confront the alleged mastermind behind the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, despite the individual being well known to foreign governments, militaries, and intelligence agencies.
Former President Maithripala Sirisena has claimed that Sri Lanka is powerless to confront the alleged mastermind behind the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, despite the individual being well known to foreign governments, militaries, and intelligence agencies.
Speaking at an event at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute today, Sirisena said that while authorities are still scrambling to identify the architect of the coordinated terror attacks, the truth could not be revealed publicly.
“I’ve told the CID everything about how it all went down. But none of it can be disclosed. The so-called mastermind is already known to every government, military, and intelligence agency. Even though we know where the mastermind is, we can’t take them on,” Sirisena said.
The former President also alleged that serious crimes had been deliberately staged to tarnish his image, destabilize his government, and weaken his party.
Turning to current affairs, Sirisena expressed concern over Sri Lanka’s defence agreements with India, warning that the deals could create challenges similar to those sparked by the Indo-Lanka Accord of the 1980s. He also noted that provincial councils have remained inactive for more than a decade, describing them as a drain on state resources that continue to waste millions of rupees annually.
Commenting on global politics, Sirisena said world peace and sustainable development were under threat from the “war mindset” of certain world leaders. He singled out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an example, accusing powerful nations of prioritizing conflict over tackling global poverty.
The Easter Sunday bombings of April 21, 2019, killed more than 260 people and injured over 500 in coordinated suicide attacks on churches and hotels, making it one of the deadliest terror incidents in Sri Lanka’s history.
