By Leonard Jayawardena –

Leonard Jayawardena

In the wake of the Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks launched against a number of targets in the country by a local Islamic Jihadi group (National Tawheed Jamaat [NTJ]) led by Zahran Hashim on 21 April 2019, several conspiracy theories were floated as to who might be the invisible hand or “mastermind” behind the attacks on the presumption that they were not alone in carrying out these dastardly terror attacks. Several suspects were named, including India (RAW), Israel (Mossad), the US (CIA—the usual suspect) and the Sri Lanka People’s Front (SLPP). Which theory one originated or chose to subscribe to depended on one’s particular prejudices.

In August of that year, the SLPP named Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR) as their presidential candidate for the November 2019 election and in his campaign he prioritised national security. GR won in a landslide victory and thereafter the conspiracy theory that came to the fore was that which alleged that the bomb attacks were a plan hatched by the Rajapaksas to create chaos and fear in the country with a view to coming back to power.

Following the economic crisis into which the nation was plunged as a result of certain economic and fiscal policies of the GR administration and the consequent plummeting of his popularity, this conspiracy theory gained increasing traction among the public. It is a fact, though, that even before the electoral victory of Gotabaya and an iota of “evidence” emerged that the Rajapaksas had had a hand in the attacks, there were some who suspected that they were somehow behind them.

The basic rationale for the theory was that Gotabaya politically benefited from the Easter Sunday tragedy and so must have been behind it. As more details relating to the bombings emerged as investigations into them proceeded, various bits of information that came to light were seized upon by the conspiracy theorists as confirmatory evidence for the theory. These included the links the person known as “Sonic Sonic” was said to have had with the terrorists prior to the bombings. He was actually an undercover operative of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) who had infiltrated the terrorist group. The other “evidences” included the alleged transfer by GR of CID officers investigating the Easter Sunday attacks, including Shani Abeysekera, who headed the investigation as Director of the CID, in order to sabotage it. However, in a statement dated 24 April 2024 issued in response to certain allegations made against him by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, GR says, “In November 2019 the then Director of the CID was transferred by the Police Commission on the recommendation of the then IGP.” He also states, “This particular CID Director had been appointed to that office in 2017 and he continued to hold that position for over seven months after the Easter Sunday attacks.” He implies that he had sufficient time to produce results from the investigation.

The aforementioned and other alleged evidences for the conspiracy theory remained “evidences” of an indirect kind until the testimony of Hanzeer Azad Maulana, one-time secretary to Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan (aka Pillayan), in a Channel 4 television film titled “Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings: Dispatches” , which was aired on 5 September 2023. In the film Maulana claimed, inter alia, that he had knowledge of a plan hatched to bring back the Rajapaksas (Mahinda and Gotabaya) to power after creating an “unsafe [security] situation” and that he had arranged and was a witness to a meeting between Suresh Sallay and Zahran’s group at a coconut estate in Karadiyapuval, a grama niladhari division in Vanathavilluwa, in February 2018, where this plan was discussed.

From 2009 to 2012 Suresh Sallay worked for the Ministry of Defence as Coordinator, Foreign Intelligence. From 2012 to 2016 he served as Director, Military Intelligence, at the Army Headquarters. From November 2016 to December 2018 he served as Minister Counsellor of Sri Lanka’s High Commission in Malaysia. In December 2019 the newly elected president GR appointed Sallay as the head of SIS (State Intelligence Service).

While providing a fresh impetus to the most popular conspiracy concerning the Easter Sunday attacks, the Channel 4 film provided for the first time “evidence” of a direct kind for the involvement of the Rajapaksas in the terrorist attacks, and widespread calls emanated from several quarters for an inquiry to investigate into the allegations made in the film, the foremost among which was the local Catholic Church led by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith.

In response to these demands, a Committee of Inquiry was appointed at the direction of President Ranil Wickremasinghe (RW) on 11 September 2023 to inquire into these allegations and report whether there was proof for them. The Committee thus appointed comprised Justice S.I. Imam, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, Air Chief Marshal Jayalath Weerakkody, a retired commander of Sri Lanka Air Force, and Mr. Harsha Soza, President’s Counsel. The Committee completed their inquiry and handed over the Report (known as the Imam Report) to RW in June 2024. Neither this report nor another report (the Alwis Report) handed over to RW in September 2024 was made public by him before he left office following his defeat at the presidential election held on 21 September.

After setting a deadline for the present Government to make public both the Imam and Alwis reports and the Government failing to do so, Udaya Gammanpila, attorney-at-law and former MP, held press conferences and published the reports on his website. The Imam Report was published with its Annexures in full and my comments below are based on what appears on his website.

According to the Report, the “unanimous finding” of the Committee is that “the allegations made in the Channel 4 telecast by Azad Maulana are unproved” (p. 14). The Report states that “Sallay was out of the country from 2016 to 2019 November” and in the Committee’s view “Sallay’s alibi is an irreversible fact” (p. 14). However, on page 11 the Report says, “Sallay had come to Sri Lanka on November 04, 2017 and remained in Sri Lanka till November 13. 2017 to attend an inquiry conducted by the FCID.” The Report apparently disregards or overlooks the brief visit to Sri Lanka of Sallay in 2017 when saying that he was “out of the country from 2016 to 2019 November.”

The Report does not say what steps were taken to ascertain that “Sallay was out of the country from 2016 to 2019 November”—February 2018 being the month in which the alleged meeting between Sallay and Zahran’s group took place—but, since “Passenger Inquiry” reports relating to Maulana and Pillayan from the Department of Immigration and Emigration are annexed to the Report, it is reasonable to assume that the necessary verifications had been carried out with that department to see where Sallay was during the material period.

A Ministry of Defence statement issued following the Channel 4 film confirms the above:

Major General Suresh Sallay served at the Sri Lanka High Commission in Malaysia as Minister-Counsellor from December 2016 until December 2018. He left for India on 3rd January 2019 and returned to Sri Lanka on 30th November 2019 after completing the National Defence College Course in Delhi.

The Report further says, “There is no evidence at all to show any involvement on the part of Sallay with Zahran or the members of the National Tawheed Jamaat…” (P. 14).

According to the Channel 4 film and a statement of a CID police sergeant named A.V. Wijayaratne recorded in the Report, police investigations had led them to a safe house on a coconut farm in Karadiyapuval, Vanathavilluwa, which, according to Maulana in the Channel 4 film, was the same place where Suresh Sallay met with Zahran and the NTJ. While the Report is not clear about this, two persons the police were looking for had apparently been found in this house. According to a statement recorded from one of the suspects, who is named Mohamed Mufees, this house, made of concrete blocks, had been constructed in or about August/September 2018 —six to seven months too late for the house to serve as the venue of the alleged meeting between Sallay and the NTJ! In the film Maulana says that at the place where the meeting took place a large quantity of explosives was stashed. In January 2019 the authorities seized 100kg of explosives and 100 detonators buried at this location.

The Report records the evidence of one J. P. Y. Y. Jayasinghe, a Sub Inspector of Police attached to the CID-Technical Aid Unit, relating to the telephone communications among Zahran, Azad Maulana and four other members of the NTJ named Zaini Hasim Moulavi, M.M.M. Hanseer, Saddick and Saheed (presumably during the material period, though I didn’t see it mentioned in the Report), according to which telephone calls had been made and received in such places as Batticaloa and Kattankudy in the Eastern Province but not in the Puttalam District, where Vanathavilluwa is situated. Further proof of the mendacity of Maulana.

The Report states,

We are … compelled to reject all the allegations made by Azad Maulana in the Channel 4 telecast as unproved. The Channel 4 telecast appears to us to be an illusory drama created by Azad Maulana presumably to make out a case to get permanent residential status in a country like Switzerland. The evidence is that Maulana does not like to live in Sri Lanka. (p.14)

This is also the view expressed in my Colombo Telegraph article titled “Was There A Conspiracy Behind The Easter Sunday Bomb Attacks?” (September 19, 2023), in which I have also pointed out certain weaknesses and illogicalities in Maulana’s false testimony in the Channel 4 film.

One flaw I noticed in the Report. The Channel 4 film includes a “reconstruction” of the alleged meeting between Sallay and Zahran’ group. The Committee apparently mistook it for actual footage of the meeeting and call it a hoax, saying the video clip does not show Sallay at the coconut farm.

The Inquiry had been conducted without the participation of Maulana for the reason that all efforts on the part of the Committee to contact him had failed. Maulana had not responded to either the notice sent to him at his last known email address or the general notice published in the press prior to the Inquiry requesting members of the public come forward with any information relevant to the allegations made in the Channel 4 film. In the press notice the Committee of Inquiry also stated that they required the address and/or whereabouts and contact details of Maulana to proceed with their investigation.

In view of unconfirmed reports suggesting that Maulana was currently living in Switzerland, the Committee had also written to the Ambassador of Switzerland in Sri Lanka to ascertain whether Maulana was residing in Switzerland and the Ambassador had replied that due to data protection laws in Switzerland no information on individuals could be given (p. 3).

The Channel 4 film claims that Maulana gave a sworn submission to the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights. When requested to provide the Committee with a certified copy of this, the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva had replied, saying, “[W]e have no information pertaining to your request for which we have consent to share with your Committee of Inquiry,” the consent concerned being, of course, that of Maulana (p. 2).

The Report states that Maulana “preserved his identity under different aliases,” M.M.M. Hanzeer being one of them (p. 3).

The Report states on page 4

Though we would have been justified in terminating the proceedings of the Committee because of Azad Maulana’s absence, and failure to testify before us, we nevertheless proceeded to examine the veracity of the allegations in the Channel-4 broadcast as best as we could.”

Maulana’s silence and failure to testify before the Committee is most telling. In the Channel 4 video he claims that he has “some strong proof they can’t deny” and says, “I can’t carry this sin my whole life. I want in some part, I want to tell the truth.” He pretends to be someone tormented in his conscience for the part he had played in the alleged Easter Sunday conspiracy (as arranger of the alleged meeting between Sallay and the NTJ) but failed but to appear before the Committee of Inquiry, where, by his testimony, if tested and proved, he could have achieved the “justice” sought by the victims of the bombings and thus made amends. No one could claim that Maulana was unaware of the Inquiry, which was given wide publicity, and of the attempts made by the Committee to contact him. If concern for his personal safety was an issue, he could have testified from wherever he was without being present in person before the Inquiry. Both the findings of the Inquiry and Maulana’s failure to testify before the Inquiry tell a clear story: Maulana is an unscrupulous scoundrel who lied for personal gain and hoodwinked Channel 4 in the process.

Both the Government and the Catholic Church, which was foremost in demanding an inquiry into the Channel 4 allegations, have rejected the Imam Report (and also the Alwis Report). At the press conference publicising the Imam Report, Gammanpila stated, inter alia, the following in regard to what he thought were the reasons for President Anura and the Government wishing to suppress and reject the Imam Report:

1. While in the Opposition, the NPP demanded that an immediate inquiry should be instituted to investigate into the allegations contained in the Channel 4 film, taking the stance that the contents presented in the Channel 4 film were true, but if the Report was made public their stance would be exposed as false.

(I have watched an old video of AKD in Parliament asking for such an inquiry, in which he seems to lend at least a degree of credence to the allegations in the Channel 4 film.)

2. If the contents of the Report became known, the people would learn that a person whom the present Government has elevated to a high office in the country has in the film besmirched the name of our war heros (“ranawiruwo”—a reference to the intelligence officers) by accusing them of complicity with the terrorist group or this issue (the betrayal by this person) would again be brought into public discourse. (This person concerned is another whistleblower featured in the film who is shown heavily disguised and speaking with a muffled voice.)

As for the Catholic Church, their rejection of the Report is explained simply by the fact that it does not contain the conclusion they want to see.

But for the reasonable-minded and the impartial the Imam Report should settle the question concerning the veracity of the allegations made in the Channel 4 film.