15 men convicted in Sri Lanka for 2019 Easter bombing

A Sri Lankan court convicts 15 men of having helped organise the 2019 Easter bombings on churches and hotels that killed more than 260 people.

They were each sentenced to at least 200 years in prison after a trial that lasted more than five years.

A Sri Lankan court convicted the 15 men on Tuesday over their involvement in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings which targeted three churches during

Easter Sunday service celebrations and three hotels across the island nation, killing 267 people and wounding more than 500 others.

The April 21st attacks were inspired by the Islamic State group, and were among the deadliest attacks in Sri Lanka's history.

\FR. JUDE KRISHANTHA, Director of Mass Communications for the Catholic Church said

"Today we observe that 15 people were given imprisonment, so we are satisfied, and we are happy. Because we are happy, at least with this judgement,

we know that in the future this type of crime will not take place in our country. And also one thing we observed is that these suicide bombers are not isolated people.

They were used for another purpose: to take power."

The three-judge High Court panel also ordered the property of the defendants confiscated and any transfers invalidated under the country's tough anti-terror law.

The verdict was delivered amid tight security with hundreds of police officers deployed around the courthouse, following a lengthy trial that spanned nearly five years.

Authorities filed 23,270 charges in 2021 against 25 suspects accused of planning or inspiring the attacks. The charges included murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism,

and firearms and explosives offences under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Two Sri-Lankan-based Islamic militant groups were accused of carrying out the bombings.

None of those believed to have directly participated in the attacks are now alive.

A parliamentary committee also found that police and intelligence officials failed to act on repeated intelligence warnings of the attacks

resulting in a former police chief and a former senior defence ministry official being sentenced to death for failing to act promptly on the foreign intelligence warnings.

Their sentences are likely to be commuted to life in prison as executions in the country have not been carried out since 1976.