Trial-at-Bar finds former Defence Secretary and former Inspector General of Police criminally liable over failures that preceded the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks
COLOMBO, Saturday – In one of the most significant criminal judgments delivered against senior public officials in Sri Lanka’s history, former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundera were yesterday sentenced to death after a Trial-at-Bar found them guilty over their failure to act on intelligence warnings before the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.
The judgment marks a watershed moment in the country’s legal and constitutional history. Rather than focusing upon participation in the attacks themselves, the Court examined whether the two most senior civilian officials responsible for national security failed to discharge the duties entrusted to them despite receiving advance intelligence of an imminent terrorist threat.
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The Easter Sunday attacks of 21 April 2019 claimed the lives of more than 260 people and injured hundreds more when suicide bombers targeted churches and luxury hotels across the country. The attacks remain one of the darkest days in Sri Lanka’s post-independence history, leaving lasting scars on families, communities and the nation as a whole.
Following years of investigations and criminal proceedings, the Trial-at-Bar concluded that the failures of the then Defence Secretary and the then Inspector General of Police amounted to criminal conduct, resulting in the unprecedented sentences imposed yesterday.
The convictions are expected to be challenged before the appellate courts. Nevertheless, the judgment immediately assumes historic significance because of the legal principle at its heart: that those occupying the highest offices of State may, in certain circumstances, bear criminal responsibility for failing to perform the duties imposed upon them.
Legal observers described the ruling as one that is likely to influence future interpretations of accountability within Sri Lanka’s public administration, particularly where statutory responsibilities concern the protection of life and national security.
Beyond the courtroom, the judgment has reignited debate over the events leading up to the Easter Sunday attacks, the handling of intelligence received before the bombings, and the wider question of institutional accountability across the country’s security establishment.
For many families who lost loved ones on that Easter morning, yesterday’s verdict represents another chapter in a search for justice that has continued for more than seven years. Whether the decision ultimately survives the appellate process will be determined in the months ahead. For Sri Lanka, however, the judgment has already entered the history books.
It is not merely because two former holders of the nation’s highest security offices have been convicted. It is because, for perhaps the first time, a Sri Lankan court has declared that the failure to act when duty demands action can carry the gravest criminal consequences.
