Former State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, also known as Pilleyan, arrived at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) this morning (November 22) to provide a statement regarding the controversial Channel 4 documentary about the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks.
Pilleyan, who had previously been questioned by the CID yesterday (November 20), had requested to provide his statement in Tamil. Following this request, the CID made necessary arrangements for language translation and asked Pilleyan to return today. He complied with the request and arrived at the CID for further questioning.
The focus of the investigation stems from the airing of a Channel 4 documentary on September 6, 2023, titled Sri Lanka's Easter Bombings. The nearly 50-minute long documentary contained grave allegations about the 2019 bombings, which targeted three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels across Sri Lanka on April 21, killing over 260 people and injuring hundreds. The documentary presented testimony from whistleblowers who accused senior government officials of being complicit in the attacks.
The main whistleblower featured in the documentary is Hanzeer Azad Maulana, a former spokesman for the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pullikal (TMVP), a Tamil political party led by Pilleyan. Maulana’s testimony has been a key element in the Channel 4 investigation, prompting the CID to initiate a probe into the claims made in the documentary.
On November 11, Police Media Spokesman DIG Nihal Thalduwa announced that the CID had opened an investigation into the statements made by Maulana in the documentary. Following this, Pilleyan, was summoned to provide a statement on November 12.
However, he did not attend the scheduled date, requesting a rescheduled appointment through his lawyers. The CID then set a new date for his questioning on November 20, when he arrived for the first round of questioning.
