Colombo, Sri Lanka
CNN
—
Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court docket on Thursday discovered the nation’s former President Maithripala Sirisena and 4 different senior authorities officers answerable for failing to forestall the 2019 Easter bombings that killed at the very least 290 individuals and injured a whole bunch.
A seven-judge bench dominated Sirisena was negligent as a result of he failed to forestall the tragedy regardless of being in possession of credible intelligence warning of the assaults.
The courtroom ordered Sirisena to pay $273,300 from his private funds to members of the family of the victims. The opposite officers had been ordered to pay a complete of $574,000. The courtroom additionally ordered {that a} victims’ fund be established on the Workplace of Reparation to “examine the alleged underpayment or nonpayment” of compensation.
It additionally directed the federal government to “take acceptable disciplinary motion” towards former State Intelligence Service Chief Nilantha Jayawardena for his “lapses and failures.”
The decision comes greater than three years after a sequence of bombs ripped by church buildings and resorts in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. A number of of these bombs exploded inside church buildings throughout Easter companies in three cities. Christians in Sri Lanka account for lower than 10% of the nation’s inhabitants.
Shortly after the assaults, the Sri Lankan authorities admitted it had did not act on a number of warnings from intelligence businesses, together with from India and the US.
Within the days following the assaults, Sri Lankan intelligence companies mentioned they believed the bombers had clear hyperlinks to ISIS.
The trial of 25 males accused of plotting the bombings was adjourned final 12 months with the courtroom but to succeed in a verdict.
