The Colombo Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar sentenced former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando to death on Friday (31) over his failure to act on intelligence warnings ahead of the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings.

The ruling came hours after the same bench sentenced former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara to death in a parallel case. Both verdicts had been listed for July 31, but Fernando’s was delivered separately later in the day.

The three-judge bench comprised Justices Priyantha Liyanage, Viraj Weerasuriya and Thilakarathna Bandara. Delivering the majority decision, presiding judge Liyanage convicted Fernando on 854 of the 855 charges filed against him — the same count returned against Jayasundara.

The court’s reasoning

The majority found that then State Intelligence Service Director Nilantha Jayawardena had informed Fernando on the evening before the attacks that an attack was expected the following day, and that Fernando took no preventive action as Defence Secretary.

He could have convened an intelligence meeting to discuss the steps required, and could have consulted the tri-forces on measures to prevent the attacks, the majority said, but did neither. Knowing full well that the attack could result in deaths, the judges said, he took no action to stop it.

On that basis the majority convicted him of dereliction of official duty and of aiding and abetting murder. The court found that his inaction had led to more than 260 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

Justice Weerasuriya issued a dissenting opinion, holding that the prosecution had not proved the charges beyond reasonable doubt, and acquitted Fernando. The death sentence was imposed on the strength of the majority.

Fernando served as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence from 2018 until his resignation on April 25, 2019, four days after the bombings. The case was instituted by the Attorney General.

Context

The coordinated suicide bombings of April 21, 2019 killed more than 260 people at churches and hotels in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa. Fernando had earlier testified that then-President Maithripala Sirisena had prior knowledge of the threat and that Jayawardena concealed it.

Friday’s two rulings are the first convictions of senior officials held criminally responsible for the security-service failures around the attacks. The wider conspiracy investigation remains active, with the Attorney General having formally named former intelligence chief Suresh Salley as the “mastermind and contractor”.

Sri Lanka retains the death penalty in law but has carried out no judicial execution since 1976, and death sentences are in practice commuted to life imprisonment.

Update (July 31, evening): Fernando and Jayasundara were taken to prison on Friday evening, hours after the sentences were delivered, according to the Daily Mirror and Hiru News. The Daily Mirror said the transfer followed the bench’s majority findings of dereliction of duty and aiding and abetting murder.

Update (August 1): Fernando and Jayasundara will appeal against their convictions, their lawyer said on Saturday. Counsel Chaminda Athukorale told AFP the appeal would be filed in the Supreme Court within two weeks, resting on the dissenting judgment, which he said “explains why the two accused had no motive to kill and no links with the actual perpetrators of the bombings.”

Fernando, 76, and Jayasundara, 66, are being held in a maximum-security prison in Colombo. Government figures given to Parliament in February put the number of people on death row at 817.

Sources