Sri Lanka: 15 jailed for 220 years over 2019 bombing

Sri Lanka’s High Court on Tuesday handed 220-year jail terms to 15 men convicted of direct involvement in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which killed 279 people. The three-judge bench found that 14 of the accused were guilty on all charges, including murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possessing firearms and explosives under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. A 15th defendant was found guilty of only some of the charges, but all were each handed 220-year sentences. Nine others were acquitted. The court also ordered that all property and other assets of the convicts be confiscated.
The men had been were accused of aiding and abetting the suicide bombers who struck three luxury hotels and three churches on April 21, 2019. It was the worst terror attack against civilians in the history of the South Asian nation. Local media had speculated that the convicts could face the death penalty, although Sri Lanka has not carried out an execution since 1976 and capital punishment is typically commuted to life imprisonment.
Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic Church welcomed the convictions, which came at the end of the five-year trial. “Finally, we have justice,” Catholic priest Jude Fernando told a news agency. It was the first criminal prosecution directly linked to the coordinated bombings, though a former police chief and an ex-security chief were sentenced to death in July for criminal negligence after failing to prevent the attacks despite prior intelligence warnings. 
All of the accused are from Sri Lanka’s minority Muslim community. Twenty-five men were originally charged, but one defendant died in custody. Investigators blamed the attack on a home-grown Islamist extremist group. The trial had already made Sri Lankan legal history, with prosecutors filing 23,270 charges, the most ever brought in a single case. The suspects were prosecuted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Among those convicted on all charges was Mohamed Naufar, whom prosecutors identified as the ringleader who provided support to the eight-member suicide squad that carried out the bombings. Three of the defendants were also charged by US authorities with terrorism-related offences linked to the bombings in December 2020.
The dead included 45 foreigners, including citizens of Australia, Bangladesh, Britain, China, Denmark, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States.According to court filings, investigators believed the objective was to create chaos and present Rajapaksa, a former defence chief, as the leader best placed to restore security.