‘Partial satisfaction’: Sri Lankans hail 2019 bombings ruling with a caveat

As 15 Muslim men are given unusually long prison terms, a father who lost his teenage daughter still wants to know if it was a political conspiracy.

Officials inspect St Sebastian's Church in Negombo, north of Colombo, after multiple explosions at churches and hotels across Sri Lanka on April 21, 2019 [Getty Images]

Colombo, Sri Lanka – On the morning of April 21, 2019, tuk-tuk driver Indika Rohan took his wife and daughter to the local church for the Easter Sunday mass.

He dropped them outside St Sebastian’s Church in the Katuwapitiya area of Negombo, a scenic Christian-majority town north of Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo.

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As he went back to his tuk-tuk parked near the church, he heard a huge explosion.

A suicide attacker had detonated himself inside the church in a coordinated attack inspired by the ISIL (ISIS) group in two other churches and three luxury hotels across Sri Lanka, killing 279 people, including 45 foreigners, and injuring more than 500 others.

It was Rohan’s last ride with his 13-year-old daughter, Kanishka Hirushi, who was among 110 people killed at St Sebastian’s Church. His severely injured wife, Nilanthi Pushpakumari, 50, spent weeks in the ICU recovering.

Kanishka Hirushi was killed in the 2019 attacks [Image courtesy of Indika Rohan]

“My daughter went to the church by tuk-tuk, but returned home by hearse,” he told Al Jazeera on Wednesday, as he welcomed a court verdict that convicted 15 men over the Easter Sunday bombings – the deadliest in Sri Lanka’s history.

All the men directly involved in the attacks were believed to have died. Authorities later arrested 25 suspects accused of planning the attacks – all of them Muslims.

On Tuesday, a three-judge bench of the High Court in Colombo found 15 of them guilty of more than 23,000 charges, including murder, conspiracy to commit terrorist attacks, and possession of firearms and explosives.

They were given long prison terms – five receiving 200 years, five others 220 years, four 240 years each, and one receiving 260 years, based on their involvement in conspiring and aiding the attacks.

Nine others were acquitted of all charges, while one accused died during the trial.

Rohan, 56, said he waited for justice for more than seven years.

“My siblings and niblings always express sadness over the loss of our daughter,” he told Al Jazeera. “Most of them reside abroad, and they always asked about the development of the trial against the accused.”

‘Hold masterminds accountable’

After the bombings, a Sri Lankan parliamentary committee found that police and intelligence officials had failed to prevent the attacks despite repeated intelligence warnings.

In 2023, the country’s Supreme Court ordered former President Maithripala Sirisena, former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara, State Intelligence Service Director Nilantha Jayawardene and National Intelligence Director Sisira Mendis to pay compensation to the blasts’ victims for their failure to prevent the attacks.

The same year, a whistleblower told the British network Channel 4 that Suresh Salley , a former intelligence chief and retired army major-general, had allegedly met the bombers and that he had links with them.

The whistleblower claimed the attack was allowed to happen to boost the popularity of Gotabaya Rajapaksa ahead of the 2019 presidential election. Rajapaksa, who denied the charge , declared his candidacy two days after the attacks and won the election.

Salley was arrested in February this year. He is being treated in hospital while under police custody.

In July, Jayasundara and former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando were sentenced to death for criminal negligence over the bombings. But Sri Lanka has not carried out any executions since 1976.

Case against Salley ‘very significant’

Rohan said he was closely following the case against Salley “with serious concern”.

“The verdict against the accused men gives me only partial satisfaction. We will be fully satisfied when the verdict for this [Salley] case is announced,” Rohan told Al Jazeera.

Ruki Fernando, a Sri Lankan rights activist, said the case against Salley in a lower court is “very significant and needs to proceed to the High Court”.

“It [case] has the potential to hold those who may be the masterminds accountable,” he said.

The Easter Sunday bombings also revived memories of Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long civil war involving the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a disbanded separatist group that once fought a bloody conflict to establish an independent state for the ethnic Tamil minority.

After the historic Gen Z-led protests in 2022, which ousted the powerful Rajapaksa family, Sri Lanka elected Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake as president in 2024.

Two weeks after his victory, Dissanayake visited St Sebastian’s Church and met the families who had lost their loved ones in the attacks. He promised a thorough investigation into the attacks and to expose any alleged political backing behind them.

“There seems to be some progress in the continuing investigations into the Easter attacks and the government appears to be committed to it,” activist Fernando told Al Jazeera.

Rohan says he trusts the government to act on its promise. “We hope it is able to deliver justice.”

15 名穆斯林男子被判处异常长的监禁刑期，一位失去十几岁女儿的父亲仍然想知道这是否是一场政治阴谋。

2019 年 4 月 21 日，斯里兰卡各地教堂和酒店发生多起爆炸事件后，官员们在科伦坡以北的尼甘布检查了圣塞巴斯蒂安教堂。[Getty Images]

斯里兰卡科伦坡——2019 年 4 月 21 日上午，嘟嘟车司机 Indika Rohan 带着妻子和女儿去当地教堂参加复活节星期日弥撒。

他把他们扔在了尼甘布卡图瓦皮蒂亚地区的圣塞巴斯蒂安教堂外。尼甘布是斯里兰卡首都科伦坡以北一个风景秀丽、基督教徒占多数的小镇。

斯里兰卡法院公布15名因复活节周日致命爆炸案被定罪的罪犯名单（共4人），这是第1名。

2019年斯里兰卡复活节爆炸案15名罪犯被判有罪：判决结果如何

名单 3/4：两名前斯里兰卡官员因 2019 年复活节爆炸案被判处死刑

名单之四：斯里兰卡前情报局长因2019年复活节袭击事件被捕

当他回到停在教堂附近的嘟嘟车旁时，他听到了一声巨大的爆炸声。

一名自杀式袭击者在教堂内引爆了身上的炸弹，这是一起受“伊斯兰国”（ISIS）组织启发而发起的协同袭击，此前该组织还在斯里兰卡的另外两座教堂和三家豪华酒店发动了袭击，造成 279 人死亡，其中包括 45 名外国人，另有 500 多人受伤。

这是罗汉最后一次和他13岁的女儿卡尼什卡·希鲁什一起乘车，卡尼什卡是圣塞巴斯蒂安教堂爆炸案中遇难的110人之一。他50岁的妻子尼兰蒂·普什帕库马里身受重伤，在重症监护室住了几周才康复。

卡尼什卡·希鲁什在2019年的袭击中遇难。[图片由Indika Rohan提供]

“我的女儿乘嘟嘟车去教堂，但却乘灵车回家，”他周三告诉半岛电视台，同时他对法院判决15名男子犯下复活节星期日爆炸案（斯里兰卡历史上最致命的爆炸案）表示欢迎。

所有直接参与袭击的男子据信都已死亡。当局随后逮捕了25名涉嫌策划袭击的嫌疑人——他们全部是穆斯林。

周二，科伦坡高等法院三名法官组成的合议庭裁定其中 15 人犯有 23000 多项罪名，包括谋杀、阴谋实施恐怖袭击以及持有枪支和爆炸物。

他们因参与密谋和协助袭击而被判处长期监禁——五人被判处 200 年监禁，五人被判处 220 年监禁，四人各被判处 240 年监禁，一人被判处 260 年监禁。

另有九人被判无罪，一名被告在审判期间死亡。

56岁的罗汉表示，他等待正义已经超过七年了。

“我的兄弟姐妹和侄子侄女们总是对我们女儿的离世感到悲痛，”他告诉半岛电视台。“他们大多居住在国外，他们总是询问对被告的审判进展情况。”

“追究幕后主使的责任”

爆炸事件发生后，斯里兰卡议会的一个委员会发现，尽管情报部门多次发出警告，但警方和情报官员未能阻止袭击。

2023年，该国最高法院下令前总统迈特里帕拉·西里塞纳、前警察总监普吉特·贾亚桑达拉、国家情报局局长尼兰塔·贾亚瓦德纳和国家情报局局长西西拉·门迪斯向爆炸案受害者支付赔偿金，因为他们未能阻止袭击。

同年，一名举报人告诉英国第四频道，前情报局长、退役陆军少将苏雷什·萨利据称曾与爆炸案嫌疑人会面，并与他们有联系。

举报人声称，这起袭击事件的发生是为了在2019年总统大选前提升戈塔巴雅·拉贾帕克萨的支持率。拉贾帕克萨否认了这一指控，并在袭击发生两天后宣布参选，最终赢​​得了选举。

萨利于今年二月被捕。目前他正在医院接受治疗，并被警方拘留。

7月，贾亚桑达拉和前国防部长赫马西里·费尔南多因在爆炸案中玩忽职守而被判处死刑。但斯里兰卡自1976年以来就没有执行过任何死刑。

针对萨利的案件“意义重大”

罗汉表示，他“非常关注”针对萨利的案件。

罗汉告诉半岛电视台：“对被告人的判决只能让我部分满意。只有当萨利案的判决宣布后，我们才能完全满意。”

斯里兰卡人权活动家鲁基·费尔南多表示，萨利在下级法院的案件“非常重要，需要上诉至高等法院”。

他说：“此案有可能追究幕后主使的责任。”

复活节星期日爆炸案也唤起了人们对斯里兰卡长达 26 年的内战的记忆，这场内战涉及泰米尔伊拉姆猛虎解放组织（LTTE），这是一个已解散的分离主义组织，曾为建立一个独立的泰米尔少数民族国家而进行过血腥冲突。

在 2022 年由 Z 世代领导的历史性抗议活动推翻了强大的拉贾帕克萨家族之后，斯里兰卡在 2024 年选举倾向于马克思主义的阿努拉·库马拉·迪萨纳亚克为总统。

胜选两周后，迪萨纳亚克前往圣塞巴斯蒂安教堂，慰问了在袭击中失去亲人的家属。他承诺将对袭击事件进行彻底调查，并揭露任何涉嫌的幕后政治势力。

“对复活节袭击事件的持续调查似乎取得了一些进展，政府似乎也致力于此，”活动人士费尔南多告诉半岛电视台。

罗汉表示，他相信政府会履行承诺。“我们希望政府能够伸张正义。”