Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage said the Government has no intention whatsoever to sweep the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks under the carpet. He said we have given the assurance that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Government will not attempt to defend anybody who is held responsible for this brutal terror attacks.
Participating in a special debate on Easter Sunday attacks at a private television channel, Minister Aluthgamage said the Ranil Wickremesinghe-Maithripala Sirisena Government should be held responsible for 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
The former Government had to face these repercussions as they danced according to the whims and fancies of the minority parties with the intention of capturing power. He said the then Yahapalana Government catered to the interests of politicians such as Rauff Hakeem, Rishad Bathiudeen and Asad Sali who had dealt with extremists.
The Minister said when this incident occurred all those who held top positions such as the Army Commander, IGP and Defence Secretary were the people appointed by the then Government.
The Former Government, through the appointment of a Parliamentary Select Committee attempted to cover up the Easter Sunday attacks. They even appointed Rauff Hakken, Rajitha Senaratne, M. A. Sumanthiran and Nalinda Jayatissa as the members of the Parliamentary select committee.
Aluthgamage said the main reason for such multiple terror attacks was that the former Government deliberately deactivated the country’s intelligence service and allowed the TID and CID to do the job carried out by the intelligence services.
DIG Nalaka de Silva and SSP Shani Abeysekara did the job carried out by the intelligence service and they filed cases against us to get credit from Ranil Wickremesinghe and Maithripala Sirisena.
The Minister said 730 persons had been arrested by the end of 21-04-2019 in connection with the Easter Sunday attacks. Of them, 411 persons have been released so far. In addition, 50 persons who were in foreign countries were also arrested and brought back to Sri Lanka.
Of the 211 suspects in remand custody, cases have been filed against 48 suspects in High Courts including Gampaha, Kandy, Kurunegala, Puttalam, Nuwara Eliya, Batticaloa, Kegalle and Colombo.
One hundred and sixty five suspects have also been arrested after November 16, 2019. Nine organisations which had contributed to promote extremism have been blacklisted. The Government has intervened in the court cases of US, Australian and Maldives nationals who died due to the Easter Sunday attacks. The properties and jewelries of those who had links to the attack have been seized.
The Minister said none of the volumes of the Presidential Commission report on the Easter Sunday attacks has been hidden and all those volumes received by the President have been referred to the Attorney General. Therefore, all volumes and reports are with the AG. However, the information in some of the reports cannot be divulged as it would hamper the ongoing investigations. Therefore it is up to the AG to decide whether some information should be made public or not.
The Minister said during the tenure of the former Yahapalana Government, the AG, IGP and judges were summoned to Temple Trees. They themselves discussed and filed the cases. Therefore, they expect us to do the same thing. We have sent all the reports to the AG so that he will fulfill his task. The President and the Government can’t intervene in the AG’s job. As it was done by the former Government, we can’t summon the AG to the Temple Trees and ask him to file the case.
We can’t ask the IGP to arrest people and judges to hear cases as we wish. We can’t resort to such undemocratic moves committed by the former Government. We have already given all the documents on the Easter Sunday attacks to the AG so that it is up to him to initiate necessary legal actions.
Minister Aluthgamage said unlike the SJB, we also have a lot of pain about the killing of 300 Catholic devotees and injuring another 506. However, we vehemently condemn the attempt by the SJB to pass the buck on the Easter Sunday attacks to the Government.
The Opposition through the media attempted to create the impression that the Government had planned those attacks with the intention of grabbing power. One year before the Easter Sunday attacks, the UNP was defeated in the Pradeshiya Sabha election. The UNP was also caught up in the Central Bank bond scam. Therefore, we didn’t want to plan any plot like the Easter Sunday attacks to come to power. In 2018, the people had decided to defeat the Ranil-Maithri Government.
The SJB Galle District Parliamentarian Manusha Nanayakkara said there is an issue of not implementing recommendations of the Presidential Commission report. We have received only one volume of the Presidential Commission report on Easter Sunday attacks. There are another 22 volumes which have not been received by us. In addition, there is a confidential report handed over to the President.
Former Attorney General Dappula De Livera who had gone through the full report of the Easter Sunday attacks had said that there is a ‘conspiracy’ behind the Easter Sunday attacks. After that Colombo Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith said that the Easter Sunday attacks were a conspiracy to capture power.
State Minister of Fisheries Kanchana Wijesekera said they were aware that the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) doesn’t have facts to speak on the Easter Sunday attacks and that is we invited them to come for an open television debate.
In Parliament, they can utter anything under the pretext of parliamentary privileges. Even the Catholic Church had drafted its letter based on the speeches made by some Opposition lawmakers in Parliament such as Harin Fernando, Manusha Nanayakkara, Rauff Hakeem, S.M. Marikkar, Eran Wickramaratne and Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
Some of those speeches made by the Opposition lawmakers in Parliament have become a key topic today. However, we should look into what has really happened. Any false allegation can be leveled in Parliament under the pretext of parliamentary privileges. Therefore, some sort of misunderstanding has been created among the public regarding those multiple terror attacks that took place on April 21, 2019. We are always ready to talk with the Cardinal or any Catholic Bishop based on the evidence and proof we have. That is why we always told the Opposition to come out with acceptable evidence.
Wijesekera said even today if the Opposition can repeat what they said in Parliament, we are ready to categorically refute those allegations with facts and figures.
It was not in April, 2019, that the intelligence sources had first provided information of such a terror attack. The first information had been given on October 6, 2015. Another five page intelligence report had been given on September 27, 2016 which had clearly mentioned the activities of the extremist elements.
When that information was given by the intelligence sources, the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had refused to accept it. Then the Army Commander Major General Chrishantha de Silva who had given evidence before the Presidential Commission had clearly mentioned that.
After the Easter Sunday attacks, the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe made a speech in Parliament on May 7, 2019. According to the Parliament Hansard No: 206 of May 2019, Wickremesinghe admitted that if that information had been received, then they had failed to take any action.