COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan police have arrested the country’s former intelligence chief, retired Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay, in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners, authorities said.
Police said Sallay, the former head of the State Intelligence Service (SIS), was taken into custody at dawn in a suburb of Colombo in the most high-profile arrest to date in the long-running probe.
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“He was arrested for conspiracy and aiding and abetting the Easter Sunday attacks,” an investigating officer said. “He has been in touch with people involved in the attacks, even recently.”
The Catholic Church, which has led public pressure for accountability, welcomed the move. “What we need is the truth behind the Easter attacks. We want to see justice for all the victims,” church spokesman Father Cyril Gamini Fernando said.
The coordinated suicide bombings on April 21, 2019, targeted churches and luxury hotels across Sri Lanka, wounding more than 500 and devastating the island’s tourism industry. The attacks, blamed on a homegrown jihadist group, were the deadliest assault on civilians since the country’s civil war ended in 2009.
Sallay, who was promoted to head the SIS after Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the presidency in 2019, has been accused of involvement in organizing the bombings — a charge he has denied. His arrest comes ahead of the seventh anniversary of the attacks.
In 2023, British broadcaster Channel 4 reported that Sallay met the Islamist bombers prior to the attack. A whistleblower alleged he allowed the plot to proceed to influence that year’s presidential election in favor of Rajapaksa, who declared his candidacy two days after the bombings and later won in a landslide after promising to crush Islamist extremism. Sallay has previously rejected such claims.
Questions about the role of Sri Lanka’s security apparatus have persisted. A former member of the jihadist group told reporters in 2019 that the movement initially received funding from a military intelligence unit to propagate a fundamentalist ideology in the multi-ethnic eastern province. At the time, the government acknowledged a military role in supporting the radical group. Separate investigations have also faulted authorities for failing to act on warnings from Indian intelligence that an attack was imminent.
While local extremists were held responsible, the Islamic State group claimed the bombings two days later. Investigators said they found no direct evidence tying the operation to a foreign command structure.
Sallay was dismissed as SIS chief after Anura Kumara Dissanayake won the presidency in 2024, pledging prosecutions related to the Easter Sunday case. Police described his detention as part of a broader effort to identify any masterminds and networks behind the plot.
International dimensions remain. In 2021, U.S. authorities charged three Sri Lankans with supporting the attacks, which killed five U.S. nationals. In Sri Lanka, 25 suspects have been indicted in the High Court, while the Supreme Court fined then-President Maithripala Sirisena and four senior officials the equivalent of nearly €1 million in a civil case for failing to prevent the bombings.
The United Nations has urged Colombo to publish withheld portions of earlier inquiries, underscoring continued concern over transparency and accountability in one of Sri Lanka’s most consequential criminal investigations.
As the anniversary approaches, the arrest of Sallay signals a new phase in a case that has shaped the country’s politics, strained public trust in security institutions and left survivors and relatives seeking answers seven years on.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
