Published: 12:15 AM, 08 September 2026
A Landmark Judgement!
Shantanu Mukharji
In a dramatic court verdict (July 31), the Colombo Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar sentenced former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara and former Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, Hemasiri Fernando to death over their failure to act on intelligence warnings of the impending Easter Sunday attacks which shock Sri Lanka on 21 April 2019. The judgment was however, divided. Presiding Judge Priyantha Liyanage and Judge Thilakarathna Bandara convicted the two former officials, while Judge Viraj Weerasuriya held that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt. On their part, Jayasundara and Fernando are expected to appeal [Sri Lanka maintains a moratorium on the death penalty since 1976]. Therefore, the importance of July 31st judgment does not necessarily lie in sending people to the gallows but in establishing the fact that senior public officials can be held criminally responsible when their failure to perform their duties contributes to loss of lives.
It may be recalled that soon after the attacks, Jayasundara and Fernando immediately became subjects of scrutiny for obvious reasons. Jayasundara then was the country’s highest-ranking Police officer and Fernando held the senior most administrative position in the Defence Ministry. Significantly, however, according to the experts, the July 31st ruling does not address every question surrounding the Easter Sunday attacks. It does not identify every person who may have contributed to the security failure, nor does it settle the continuing dispute over whether a wider conspiracy existed. Here also, it is worth a recall that the case against Jayasundara was built around a series of intelligence communications sent to him between April 9 and 21, 2019. Seven preceded the first explosion, while the eighth arrived after the attack had commenced. By April 20, an intelligence in/out indicated that an attack could occur on or before Easter Sunday and that churches and five-star hotels were among the likely targets. As in practice, state officials receive general intelligence assessments regularly. Some are incomplete, uncertain or difficult to verify.
Sri Lanka intelligence officers in anonymity give out that a warning of suicide attacks against named categories of targets demands immediate action, even when every detail has not been confirmed. Further, investigations had also revealed that the majority concluded that Jayasundara, as Inspector General of Police (IGP), had failed to take the measures expected of the officer legally responsible for preventing crime and protecting the public. Fernando, meanwhile, was accused of failing to use his position in the Defence Ministry to bring the relevant institutions together.
The majority held that he could have convened intelligence officials, consulted the Armed Forces and pushed the security establishment to respond to the threat. Both defendants rejected the suggestion that they had deliberately allowed the attacks to happen. In other words, there was complete absence of coordination. Jayasundara told the Court that he had been treated unjustly and had performed his duties to the fullest extent possible. He also said that more senior or directly responsible officials had been allowed to escape accountability. He also asked the Court to consider the suffering endured by his family. Fernando argued that he had been the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, not the Minister of Defence.
The powers of the Defence Minister, he said, remained with then President Maithripala Sirisena and had not been transferred to him when the President travelled overseas. Fernando also said he did not possess the authority to convene the National Security Council (NSC) or impose a curfew. Academically, these arguments raise valid questions about the distribution of authority within the security establishment during the Yahapalanaya Government. By late 2018, the Government was dysfunctional due to the political conflict between President Sirisena and then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Following the 51-day Constitutional coup, relations between the President and senior members of the Government had deteriorated to such an extent that Wickremesinghe was not invited to NSC briefings. The Constitutional barriers and the irresponsibility of everyone involved prevented any kind of resolution to the political crisis until the Supreme Court nullified the illegally-constituted Government. The statements made by Fernando have also raised questions about the conduct of former State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director Nilantha Jayawardena, who had received the original intelligence. In the ongoing context, it may be recalled that on November 5, 2024, a five-member Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Preethi Padman Surasena, Yasantha Kodagoda, Kumudini Wickremasinghe, Mahinda Samayawardhena and Arjuna Obeyesekere held that, given the gravity and complexity of the case, the High Court should have called for the defence. It ordered the trial to continue.
That intervention is central to the recent judgment. Had the Supreme Court allowed the original acquittals to stand, the case would have ended four years ago without the defence being heard. The convictions delivered became possible because the Supreme Court refused to allow one of the country’s gravest criminal cases to end prematurely. The judge who headed that Supreme Court bench was then Preethi Padman Surasena, who is now the Chief Justice, having assumed office only in July 2025. This history gives context to the current dispute over the Government’s proposal to extend the retirement age of Judges. Further, the Cabinet has approved moves to prepare Constitutional and legal amendments increasing the retirement age of Judges. The proposal has met strong resistance from the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) and opposition parties.
The BASL has the right to question the absence of consultation and the failure to fill existing vacancies. Interestingly, Chief Justice Surasena headed the bench that prevented the case against Jayasundara and Fernando from disappearing after the first Trial-at-Bar acquitted them. The Supreme Court’s decision ensured that the defendants were called upon to explain their conduct and allowed the legal process to reach July 31st judgment. It is worth a recall and to refresh our memory that the 2019 Easter bombings were a series of coordinated suicide attacks in Sri Lanka carried out by local Islamist extremists, targeting three Christian churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, 2019, and killing 279 people including 45 foreign nationals and injured over 500.
Important targets included St. Anthony's Shrine (Colombo), St. Sebastian's Church (Negombo), Zion Church (Batticaloa), Shangri-La Hotel, Cinnamon Grand, and The Kingsbury. Perpetrators were suicide bombers linked to the local group National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ), pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, and led locally by Zahran Hashim. Advance warnings provided by foreign intelligence (including India) weeks prior, were ignored or not acted upon by top security leadership which speaks poorly of the intelligence and security establishments. Now that this judgement is pronounced, it is very likely to trigger debates on the accountability of the intelligence community failing to act upon specific preventable inputs.
It would also be interesting to know if such a landmark judgement will send a strong message as a deterrent to the concerned agencies the world over, and future terror misadventures of similar occurrences could possibly be prevented. Whatever, this milestone verdict merits and in-depth analysis by those in the judicial and security fraternity.
Shantanu Mukharji is a retired IPS
officer and former National
Security Adviser in Mauritius.
