Rajapaksa Seeks Supreme Court Protection in Easter Sunday Bombing Probe
Bharatmorning.com – Former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has petitioned the country’s Supreme Court for protection from arrest under anti-terrorism legislation as investigators continue examining the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
The move follows a series of legal developments that have brought renewed focus to accountability for the coordinated bombings, which struck churches and luxury hotels on April 21, 2019. Nearly 270 people were killed and more than 500 were wounded in the violence, among them 11 Indian nationals.
Rajapaksa, 77, is seeking to prevent the Criminal Investigation Department from taking him into custody in connection with the case. His latest appeal came after the Court of Appeal rejected his earlier writ petition on October 1 without conducting a hearing.
Travel Ban Added Pressure
In June, the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court barred Rajapaksa from travelling abroad. The restriction was viewed as a significant development in the wider Easter Sunday investigation and raised the prospect that he could face arrest.
After the travel ban was imposed, Rajapaksa approached the Court of Appeal in an effort to stop any potential arrest. His legal team maintained that there was no reasonable basis to restrict his travel in relation to the bombing inquiry.
State representatives, however, declined to assure the court that Rajapaksa would not be arrested. That position has left the former president seeking intervention from the country’s highest court.
Rajapaksa served as Sri Lanka’s president from 2019 until 2022. His presidency ended when widespread anti-government protests forced him to resign in the middle of 2022, during a period of severe political and economic turmoil in the country.
One of Sri Lanka’s Deadliest Attacks
The Easter Sunday bombings remain among the gravest acts of violence in Sri Lanka’s recent history. Nine suicide attackers linked to National Thawheed Jamaat, a local Islamist extremist organisation associated with ISIS, carried out the coordinated operation.
Three Catholic churches and three high-end hotels were targeted in the attacks. The selection of locations meant that worshippers attending Easter services, hotel guests and staff were all caught in the blasts, deepening the national shock and creating lasting demands for answers over how the operation was allowed to proceed.
Questions surrounding advance intelligence have been central to the case. Authorities had received prior information that could have helped prevent the attacks, and subsequent criminal proceedings have examined alleged failures by senior officials to respond appropriately.
In July, former police chief Pujith Jayasundera and Hemasiri Fernando, who was then the most senior bureaucrat in the Defence Ministry, were sentenced to death. They were found guilty of criminal dereliction of duty for failing to act on intelligence received before the bombings.
The investigation has also resulted in convictions against people accused of participating in the attacks. In September, a Sri Lankan court found 15 defendants guilty over their involvement and imposed prison terms of more than 200 years on each of them.
Legal Scrutiny Extends Across Rajapaksa Family
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s court challenge comes as other members of the Rajapaksa family face separate legal scrutiny. His wife, Shiranthi Rajapaksa, was arrested on Wednesday in a corruption case involving allegations that 10 million Sri Lankan rupees in public funds were misused.
Her arrest was part of a broader series of anti-corruption actions that also involved a former foreign minister and a former head of a state bank in unrelated cases.
Namal Rajapaksa, the former president’s nephew, has been held on remand since early September in connection with a separate corruption matter. These cases are distinct from the Easter Sunday investigation, but together they have added to the legal pressure surrounding the influential political family.
The Supreme Court petition now places Rajapaksa’s request for personal legal protection at the centre of the next stage of the Easter Sunday case. The matter concerns whether investigators may move to arrest the former president while their inquiries continue under Sri Lanka’s anti-terrorism laws.
For survivors, relatives of those killed and the wider public, the continuing proceedings remain closely tied to unresolved questions about responsibility before and after the 2019 attacks. The criminal convictions and punishment of senior officials have marked important milestones, but the investigation’s wider implications continue to unfold through the courts.
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