Gotabaya Rajapaksa seeks Supreme Court shield from arrest in Easter blasts case

Former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has moved the Supreme Court seeking protection from arrest under anti-terrorism laws in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed nearly 270 people. The move comes after the Court of Appeal on October 1 dismissed, without a hearing, his writ petition seeking an order to prevent the police Criminal Investigation Department from arresting him.

The case relates to the coordinated Easter Sunday suicide attacks carried out on April 21, 2019, on three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. The bombings, carried out by nine suicide bombers from the local Islamist extremist group Thawheed Jamaat linked to ISIS, killed nearly 270 people, including 11 Indians, and injured more than 500.

In June, the Colombo Fort Magistrate's Court imposed an overseas travel ban on the 77-year-old former president, a move seen as a possible precursor to his arrest in the investigation. Rajapaksa, who was president from 2019 until he was forced to step down during mass anti-government protests in mid-2022, then approached the Court of Appeal for protection from arrest.

His lawyers argued that there were no reasonable grounds to impose the travel ban on him in connection with the Easter Sunday investigation. The state, however, told the court that it could give no undertaking that Rajapaksa would not be arrested.

The wider legal proceedings over the 2019 attacks have continued in Sri Lanka. In September, a court found 15 people guilty of involvement in the Easter Sunday bombings and sentenced each of them to more than 200 years in prison. In July, former police chief Pujith Jayasundera and Hemasiri Fernando, who was then the top bureaucrat in the Defence Ministry, were sentenced to death after being found guilty of criminal dereliction of duty for failing to act on prior intelligence that could have prevented the attacks.

Rajapaksa's family has also faced fresh legal trouble. His wife Shiranthi Rajapaksa was arrested on Wednesday in a corruption case over the alleged misuse of LKR 10 million in public funds, while his nephew Namal Rajapaksa has been in remand since early September in a separate corruption case. Overall, Rajapaksa's Supreme Court move is the latest development in the long-running investigation into the Easter Sunday bombings and the legal action linked to it.

With PTI Inputs

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