Sri Lanka court convicts 15 in 2019 Easter Sunday bombings 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 more than 500 others. Nine other suspects were acquitted.

The verdict came after a trial that lasted nearly five years. The case relates to the coordinated blasts on April 21, 2019, when nine suicide bombers from the local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat, linked to ISIS, attacked three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels in Sri Lanka.

The three-judge High Court Trial-at-Bar comprised Judges Navaratne Marasinghe, Ramanathan Kannan and Sujeewa Nissanka. Naufar Moulavi, named as the main suspect, was among those convicted by the court.

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 for murder and attempted murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism, aiding and abetting, and possessing and handling firearms and explosives. Zaharan Hashim, the leader of the National Thowhith Jamaath, led the suicide squad that carried out the Easter Sunday attacks.

The attacks triggered a political storm, with then President Maithripala Sirisena and then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe being blamed for failing to prevent them despite prior intelligence. A presidential panel of inquiry later found Sirisena guilty of failing to prevent the attacks, though he pleaded not guilty in the case filed after the panel's findings. The court's verdict on Tuesday marked a major development in the long-running case over one of Sri Lanka's deadliest attacks.