SW News: In Sri Lanka, the local Church continues to claim a cover-up and seek justice by calling for an UN-led international probe as Sri Lankan Christians commemorate four years since the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that claimed 261 lives.

On the fourth anniversary of the disaster, Fr. Julian Patrick Perera of the Archdiocese of Colombo in an interview with the Vatican News stressed the lack of justice, claiming that no serious investigation had been carried out on the whole matter. He said the withdrawal of several important investigators from the case looks to be evidence of a cover-up.

“There is also a kind of an eyewash lawsuit that has been brought against about 25 members of the so-called terrorist movement. But those charges are very surface level. How can you bring 23,000 charges into question and cross-examine so many hundreds of people? So, you can see that there is a very clear cover-up in the first place,” said Fr. Perera, adding that law experts believe that a case consisting of 23,000 charges can never be credibly brought to trial.

 

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo, has repeatedly demanded an international probe and questioned the government's account of the attacks. On April 21, 2019, terrorist bombers targeted three hotels, two Catholic churches, an Evangelical Christian church, a housing development, and a guest house. In the coordinated strikes, the eight suicide bombers—the government claimed were affiliated with the Islamic State—killed 261 people.

Fr. Perera said some progress had been made as of mid-January this year when the Sri Lankan Supreme Court found the former president Maithripala Sirisena and four top security officials guilty of negligence for failing to take action in response to information indicating a potential terrorist attack in the lead-up to the Easter Sunday bombings. Additionally, they were compelled to compensate the deceased's families 100 million rupees (273,000 USD).

Because 45 foreign nationals were killed in the attacks, the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the conviction allows for additional civil litigation in courts abroad. Based on this conviction, according to Fr. Perera, the families of these victims can file lawsuits against Sri Lankan officials for damages in their home countries.

The Church is now asking for an international probe supported by the UN. Fr. Perera continued that the Catholic Church is one of the few organizations with the wherewithal to challenge the Sri Lankan government's authority in the name of justice. Elections in Sri Lanka are usually preceded by violence, which politicians use to energize their support bases.

The prelate said the Church is pursuing justice for the entire population of Sri Lankans as well as for Catholics, because “until and unless we prove the genuine criminals, we will never be able to be a free country."

The priest said Sri Lankan Catholics wish to forgive those who attacked them on Easter Sunday in 2019 but “they should know whom to forgive.”