COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s president stated Sunday he would appoint a committee headed by a retired Supreme Court docket choose to research the matter. Accusations contained in a British television report The South Asian nation’s intelligence was complicit within the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 269 folks.
The assaults, which included simultaneous suicide bombings, focused three church buildings and three vacationer motels. Among the many lifeless have been 42 foreigners from 14 international locations.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s determination to nominate a fee headed by a choose to research allegations that Sri Lankan intelligence had a hand within the bombings carried out by Islamist militants got here underneath strain from opposition lawmakers, non secular leaders and activists in addition to family of the victims. . They are saying that earlier investigations didn’t uncover the reality behind the bombings.
In a program broadcast on Tuesday, Channel 4 interviewed a person who stated he organized a gathering between the Nationwide Thowheed Jama’ath, a neighborhood group impressed by ISIS, and a senior state intelligence official loyal to former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to formulate a plot to create instability and chaos. Enabling Rajapaksa, a former senior protection official, to win the 2019 presidential election.
Rajapaksa was pressured to resign in mid-2022 after large protests towards the nation’s worst financial disaster.
On Thursday, Rajapaksa denied the accusations against him. Contemplating that the declare that “a bunch of Islamic extremists launched suicide assaults with a purpose to make me president is absurd.”