Sri Lankan Court Postpones Hearing Against Ex-President Maithripala Sirisena in Easter Bombing Case

Three years after the 2019 bombings, a Colombo court named former President Maithripala Sirisena a suspect in the terrorist attacks. The string of bombings was the worst terrorist attack in the island's history, in which more than 250 people were killed.

A Colombo court provided relief to former President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday by suspending any action against him for ten weeks in the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks case.

Local media reported that a two-judge-bench ordered the postponement of the magisterial inquiry after the former president filed a writ petition seeking to quash the local court order in order to avoid joining the inquiry.

However, refusing to quash the summons, the Court of Appeals requested written submissions in the case by November 30.

On September 16, the Fort Magistrate’s Court decided to name Sirisena as a suspect in the case, following a private complaint filed by victims of the attack, in which they allege that the former president committed an offense by acting negligently in response to intelligence warnings.

The inquiry ordered against the ex-president came amid a call by the UN Human Rights Office to release the “complete findings” of previous inquiries into the Easter Sunday bombings.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe agreed to incorporate the UK’s Scotland Yard to help investigators.

In March, the Head of Sri Lanka's Catholic Church, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, called for an UN-led mechanism to investigate the 2019 terrorist attacks while addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, alleging that it was a "grand political plot".