Sri Lanka ex-defence secretary sentenced over bombings

A Sri Lankan court sentenced a former defence ministry secretary over the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, in the same case in which former police chief Pujith Jayasundara was sentenced to death for failing to prevent the attacks.

The earlier judgment said Jayasundara, 66, had failed in his duties to stop the bombings, which killed 279 people including 45 foreigners. He can appeal the sentence in the Supreme Court.

The ruling followed a state appeal against a 2022 decision that acquitted Jayasundara and Hemasiri Fernando, who was defence secretary at the time of the attacks.

The court was told during proceedings that an Indian intelligence agency had alerted Sri Lanka on April 4, 2019 to a possible suicide attack by Islamist extremists, but authorities failed to act.

The April 21, 2019 attacks targeted three churches and three hotels. More than 500 people were wounded. The attacks were blamed on a homegrown Islamist extremist group.

Sri Lanka has not carried out a death sentence since 1976 and maintains an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment. About 800 people are on death row, according to government figures shared with parliament in February, with sentences usually commuted to life imprisonment.