Sri Lankan Court Sentences 15 Men to Over 200 Years for 2019 Easter Bombings

A three-judge bench of Sri Lanka’s High Court handed down consecutive sentences of 200 to 260 years to 15 men, all belonging to the country’s Muslim minority, for their involvement in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed at least 267 people and injured up to 600. The attacks, carried out by nine suicide bombers who all perished, targeted three churches during services and three luxury hotels, also killing 39 foreign visitors, among them four Americans and a fifth-grader from Washington, D.C. Prosecutors named Islamic cleric Naufer Moulavi as the chief planner, giving him a life term, and ordered the confiscation of the convicts’ assets.

The verdict, announced after a nearly five-year trial, was praised by the National Christian Evangelical Alliance Sri Lanka but accompanied by calls for further inquiry into whether state officials aided the plot. Recent investigations have examined alleged links between the bombings and former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s rise to power, leading to separate convictions of a former police chief and a senior defense official for negligence, and the arrest of former intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay on collusion charges. Christian Solidarity Worldwide warned that true justice requires transparent scrutiny of any political or security-agency involvement.