Gota slams Channel 4, unveils failures leading to Easter Sunday Horror

• Presidential Commission stated signs of a Muslim extremist build up were ignored by government   
• After leaving the position of Defence Secretary in 2015 and until I was elected President, Maj. Gen. Sallay and I had no contact at all 

While refuting allegations in Channel 4 film Easter Sunday suicide bombings of 21 April 2019 carried out by Islamic extremists had been deliberately facilitated to create the conditions to get him in power in 2019, former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa , in a voluminous statement said, had the previous Yahapalana government taken action related to the build-up of religious extremism, the Easter Sunday suicide bombers would have been apprehended much earlier. 

Referring to the allegation against him, Mr. Rajapaksa, in his first ever media statement leaving office, said the charge hinges on claims made by one Hanzeer Azad Maulana, an applicant for political asylum in Europe, that he had introduced Maj. General Suresh Sallay (who is bestknown for his past role as the Director of Military Intelligence) to the principle suicide bomber Zaharan and his brother Zainee Moulavi in February 2018. Maj. Gen. Sallay has been described as one of my loyalists. 

 
“However, he is a career military officer who has served under many Presidents and all military officers are loyal to the State and not to private individuals. I too was a former army officer, and like him, I too served under different governments. 

After leaving the position of Defence Secretary in 2015 and until I was elected President, Maj. Gen. Sallay and I had no contact at all. Maj. Gen. Sallay had informed Chanel 4 that he had been removed from the position of Director Military Intelligence and was serving in Malaysia as Minister-Counsellor from 2016 to December 2018 and that he had not been in Sri Lanka at the time this meeting is said to have taken place. Furthermore, from January to November 2019 he was in India following the National Defence College course and during this entire period from 2016 to 2019 he was not operative within the defence or security structure of Sri Lanka,” he said.   

Commenting on circumstances that preceded the bombings, he said, “In order to bolster their claim that Military Intelligence was in league with the suicide bombers, the film alleges that when the police started investigating into the Vavunativu incident of 30 November 2018 where two policemen were killed and their weapons stolen and the discovery of explosives at the Wanathawilluwa safe house on 16 January 2019, the Military Intelligence had sabotaged the police investigations. All Sri Lankans are aware that the government of 2015-2019 persecuted the intelligence services and particularly the Military Intelligence and that quite a few of its members spent months and years in remand and in police custody during that period. Hence any claim that the Military Intelligence could sabotage police work during the 2015 – 2019 government, is plain nonsense.  

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Easter Sunday bombings has stated quite clearly that signs of a Muslim extremist build up were ignored by the government of 2015- 2019.