[ad_1]
The Roman Catholic leader said the government must regain the trust of the church before it can investigate the bombing on Easter Sunday.
A Roman Catholic leader in Sri Lanka stated that the government must regain the trust of the church before the two parties can talk about the church’s criticism of the investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombing, which killed 269 people.
The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjis, made the comments in response to a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gamini Lakshman Peiris seeking a meeting. His spokesperson, Reverend Cyril Ga Cyril Gamini Fernando said Wednesday.
Fernando said Langis said the authorities must conduct a transparent investigation and implement the recommendations of the Presidential Council before any negotiations can begin.
“If the government starts to conduct credible investigations and start implementing recommendations, their credibility will increase. Only the government can build this confidence,” Fernando said in a statement.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday that the Vatican’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, Archbishop Brian Udegovi, had agreed to meet with Perris to arrange talks with the bishop.
On Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019, six nearly simultaneous suicide bombings occurred in three churches and three tourist hotels, killing 269 people. A man left the fourth hotel without detonating the bomb, but then committed suicide by detonating explosives in a different location.
Among the victims were believers in Easter worship and tourists who had breakfast at the hotel. Two local Muslim groups have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) organization and have been blamed for the attack.
Ranjis wrote to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July, complaining that the government did not follow the committee’s recommendations to take legal action against former President Metripala Sirisena and several police and intelligence officials, alleging They are negligent.
The government said last month that it had filed 23,270 charges against 25 people involved in the attack, but not Sirisena or others named by the committee.
It is said that the rift and the interruption of communication between Sirisena and the then prime minister, Lanier Wicklemasingha, were the reason why the officials did not act based on near-specific intelligence warnings before the attack. This led to the election of the chairman on the national security platform later that year.
The church stated that it believes that the person being sued is a “little fish,” and that apart from religious extremism, there is a bigger conspiracy.
In his letter, Ranjith asked the authorities to investigate the alleged connection between the national intelligence officer and the attacker. He cited parliamentary speeches as saying that members of the National Intelligence Service knew and met with people who did not detonate the bomb in the first place.
He said that the speech also claimed that a suspect of the intelligence personnel was released by the police and contacted an intermediary to persuade ISIL to claim responsibility for the bombing.
ISIL later claimed responsibility after the release of a video showing the attacker dressed in black and sworn allegiance to the organization.
[ad_2]
Source link