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Senior lawyer slams former SIS Director Nilantha Jayawardena

20 Apr 2022

  • Mohan Weerakoon PC claims Nilantha prioritised job security over public safety regarding pre-Easter intelligence
  • U.R. De Silva PC says AG can be questioned if no action taken despite evidence 
BY Buddhika Samaraweera Former State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director Senior Deputy Inspector General (SDIG) of Police Nilantha Jayawardena had focused only on his job security rather than public safety in connection with the Intelligence information he had received about the Easter Sunday terror attacks of 21 April 2019, claimed Mohan Weerakoon (President’s Counsel [PC]). Speaking at a media briefing held at the Presidential Media Centre on the ongoing investigations into the said terror attacks, he said: “Jayawardena is the one who is responsible for these terror attacks. This is because he had ignored the information he received on 4 April 2019, regarding the possibility of a terror attack.”  He claimed that Jayawardena had admitted that the latter did not consider the information received on 4 April 2019, as Intelligence information, during a court proceeding held in connection with the Easter Sunday terror attacks.  “I questioned him about this in Court. Especially at the Intelligence review meeting on 9 April 2019, he had not commented on the relevant information. When he was questioned as to why he did not do it, he said that he had asked the then Chief of National Intelligence, Sisira Mendis, to comment on it. However, it is the responsibility of the SIS to comment on the Intelligence reports at the Intelligence review meetings,” stated Weerakoon PC. He further claimed that Jayawardena had told the Court that he would have lost his job if he had acted upon the information received on 4 April 2019, and that such an explosion had not taken place. Through the said statement, he said, it was clear that Jayawardena was thinking not about the safety of the people, but about his job security. Meanwhile, Udaya Rohan De Silva PC, who also attended the said media briefing, stated that if there was any evidence against Jayawardena in connection with the Easter Sunday terror attacks, it is the responsibility of Attorney General (AG) Sanjay Rajaratnam PC to file a case against him. He added that if the AG does not do so despite the evidence, it could be questioned. On the Easter Sunday of 21 April 2019, three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo were targeted in a series of coordinated suicide bombings. Later that day, another two bomb explosions took place at a house in Dematagoda and the Tropical Inn Lodge in Dehiwala. A total of 269 people were killed in the bombings while more than 500 people were injured. Later, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Easter Sunday terror attacks had, in its final report, recommended that the AG consider instituting criminal proceedings against Jayawardena under suitable provisions of the Penal Code over the terror attacks. According to the CoI report, the first communication he made in writing after receiving the Intelligence information regarding a possible terror attack on 4 April 2019, was to Mendis by letter dated 7 April 2019. It was titled “Information of an alleged plan of attack”, and the CoI during his testimony before it, queried as to why the term “alleged” was used whereas the foreign counterpart that sent him the information had not. His response was: “They say so, but we don’t know.”  The CoI, considering Jayawardena’s evidence before it, had concluded that he had not taken the said Intelligence information seriously.


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