LANKAN MINISTER SAYS MASTERMIND BEHIND EASTER SUNDAY ATTACKS IDENTIFIED

COLOMBO: A top Sri Lankan minister said on Tuesday that a radical cleric, who is now under detention, has been identified as the mastermind of the deadly Easter Sunday attacks in 2019 that killed 270 people.

Nine suicide bombers, belonging to local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat, linked to the Islamic State group, carried out coordinated blasts that tore through three churches and as many luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on the Easter Sunday in 2019.

“Naufer Moulavi was the mastermind (of the Easter bombings),” public security minister Sarath Weerasekera said. The minister said the cleric was assisted by another person identified as Hajjul Akbar.

A total of 32 suspects have been charged with murder and conspiracy to murder, Weerasekera said.

Eight dossiers have been handed over to the attorney general, he said, adding that another 75 suspects are under detention. The total number of suspects in the remand custody is 211, including the 32, who have been charged, he added.

The Buddhist-majority nation was about to mark a decade since ending a 37-year-long Tamil separatist war in May 2009 when the suicide bombings in 2019 rocked the island nation.

The attacks caused a political storm as the government, headed at that time by President Maithirpala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, was blamed for its inability to prevent the deadly attacks despite the prior intelligence made available on the impending terror strikes.