• Pillayan labels whistleblower’s claims as sensationalist bid for attention 
• Sources say Suresh Salley vows to take legal action against Channel 4  

In the midst of allegation of complicity of Sri Lankan officials loyal to the Rajapaksa family being involved in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed more than 250 people, LTTE child soldier turned State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan rebutted his erstwhile media spokesman Hanzeer Azad Maulana who is now mentioned as whistleblower in Channel 4 documentary to be aired on the episode. 

The Daily Mirror learns through sources that State Intelligence Service (SIS) Head General Suresh Salley has also warned to take legal action against Channel 4 over false allegations against him despite his denial of involvement in the Easter Sunday bombings and presence in the country at the time Maulana alleged his meeting with Salley.  

 According to the Times UK, one highly placed insider claims in an interview with Dispatches, to be aired in the UK on Channel 4 tomorrow, that he set up a 2018 meeting between a senior military intelligence official, Suresh Salley, and Islamic State-affiliated bombers to hatch a plot to destabilise Sri Lanka and facilitate the Rajapaksas’ return to power.  

Times UK reports “The meeting finished, Suresh Salley came to me and told me the Rajapaksas need an unsafe situation in Sri Lanka, that’s the only way for Gotabaya to become president,” Hanzeer Azad Maulana, the whistleblower, claims. “The attack was not a plan made in just one or two days, the plan was two, three years in the making.”   
“Maulana’s testimony is particularly striking because of claims to have connected the bombers with Salley. Lawyers who have brought legal action in London for the families of the victims said his account would be of interest to anyone seeking redress in jurisdictions outside Sri Lanka as well as within.  

Maulana served for years as an aide to Pillayan, a politician loyal to the Rajapaksas, who met the bombers while he was in prison facing charges of the murder of a political opponent. Maulana claimed Pillayan immediately saw the utility of extremists only interested in “death, death, death”.  

Maulana claims Pillayan and Salley engineered their release from prison before he arranged for Salley to meet them. “We can use them, they are not interested in anything in the world,” Maulana quoted Pillayan as saying.  

Maulana also claimed to receive a call from Salley on the morning of the bombings asking him to go to the Taj Samudra hotel in Colombo and collect one of the men, but he was unable to do so. CCTV shows one of the bombers receiving a call inside the Indian-owned hotel before leaving suddenly. Hours later, he detonated explosives inside a smaller Colombo hotel,” Times UK reported.  

However, Mr. Chandrakanthan who is also called Pillayan rebuffed all these allegations and said Mr. Moulana went abroad citing personal reasons but ended up being on the payroll of some elements acting with vested interests against Sri Lanka. “When Easter Sunday attack took place, I was in jail. If I can coordinate a terrorist attack while behind bars, it will be an achievement. Mr. Moulana has to say these things now in a foreign soil to gain attention,” he said.