Sri Lanka’s criminal investigators on Wednesday arrested former State Intelligence Service chief retired Major General Suresh Sallay in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners, in coordinated attacks on churches and hotels.
Police said Sallay was taken into custody at dawn in a suburb of the capital in the most high-profile arrest in the long-running investigation, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
“He was arrested for conspiracy and aiding and abetting the Easter Sunday attacks,” an investigating officer told AFP. “He has been in touch with people involved in the attacks, even recently.”
The April 21, 2019, suicide bombings targeted three luxury hotels in Colombo, two Roman Catholic churches, and an evangelical Protestant church outside the capital. More than 500 people were wounded.
The attacks were blamed on a homegrown jihadist group. ISIS claimed responsibility two days later, but investigators said they had no evidence to directly establish a foreign link.
The Catholic Church, which has led calls for accountability since the attacks, welcomed the arrest as a sign that investigations are continuing.
“What we need is the truth behind the Easter attacks. We want to see justice for all the victims,” church spokesman Father Cyril Gamini Fernando told AFP.
Church leaders have previously accused successive governments of failing to identify the masterminds behind the bombings.
Sallay was promoted to head the State Intelligence Service in 2019 after Gotabaya Rajapaksa became president following the bombings.
He had been accused of involvement in organizing the suicide attacks, allegations he has denied. His arrest comes days before the seventh anniversary of the attacks.
British broadcaster Channel 4 reported in 2023 that Sallay was linked to the Islamist bombers and had met them before the attack.
A whistleblower told the network that Sallay had permitted the attack to proceed with the intention of influencing that year’s presidential election in favor of Rajapaksa, who declared his candidacy two days after the bombings and later won the November vote.
Other inquiries faulted authorities for failing to act on warnings from an Indian intelligence agency that an attack was imminent.
In a separate civil ruling, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court fined then-president Maithripala Sirisena and four senior officials more than $1.03 million for their failure to prevent the attacks.
The United Nations has urged Sri Lanka to publish portions of previous inquiries into the bombings that were withheld from the public, as the Catholic Church continues to press for full accountability ahead of the anniversary.
