Easter Sunday attacks ‘Culprits will be exposed eventually’

Unmasking of real culprits responsible for the Easter Sunday carnage will take place gradually once the Court processes are under way, Chief Government Whip Highways Minister Johnston Fernando said yesterday.   

Addressing the media after a meeting held at his ministry, Minister Fernando said that the judicial process would help identify the persons who aided and abetted the terror attacks and also those who had shirked their duties putting national security in jeopardy. 

 
“The Presidential Commission report has made recommendations and suggested the legal actions to be taken. Once that process is commenced, the culpability of those who committed offences as well as those who deliberately omitted not to act to prevent the disaster will be made known. If some of those are in the Opposition think that by means of criticizing the Presidential Commission or trying to find loop holes in the report, they  would be exonerated from their crimes, they are mistaken,” said the Minister who is also a member of the Cabinet subcommittee appointed to study in depth the facts and recommendations on the course of action contained in the final report of the PCoI into the Easter Sunday attack.   

The Minister said that the main task of the Cabinet subcommittee headed by former Speaker and Minister Chamal Rajapaksa was to study in-depth the findings and recommendations contained in the PCoI report and to advise on the next course of action. The committee also comprised ministers Udaya Gammanpila, Prasanna Ranatunga and Rohitha Abeygunawardena.   

“We studied the reports on the Easter Sunday attack at length, and have identified 78 recommendations. We thereafter submitted a report to the President outlining how those recommendations are to be implemented and which agencies are going to implementing them,’ he said. 

• We studied the reports on the Easter Sunday attack at length, and have identified 78 recommendations. We thereafter submitted a report to the President outlining how those recommendations are to be implemented 

“Since the day the PCoI completed its investigations the Opposition members had been shouting and demanding that the report be released. Since the day it was released, the Opposition again shouted that it be tabled in Parliament. Since the day that has been done, they are making various allegations about the process of the PCoI about the content of the report. Yet it seems that they have forgotten who is responsible for the incident that needed to be investigated by the PCoI. In the first place, it was their mistakes and wrongdoing that paved the way for the Easter Sunday attacks and the subsequent investigations. These vociferous leaders now in the Opposition were not seen when the country was in near anarchy soon after the terror attacks on Easter Sunday. While there was no leader available at that time, it was Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith who came forward and appealed to people against further violence and prevented another bloodbath in this country. The nation must be thankful to him for his brave action on that day. I do not think that they could just escape from their wrongdoings by changing their name from the UNP to SJB and shifting from the elephant symbol to the telephone symbol. They placed the country’s national security in jeopardy by making structural changes in the police to form special units and divisions such as FCID to suppress their political rivals. They were imprisoned by Intelligence Unit operatives. There had been five Secretaries to the Ministry of Defence within a period of four years. Such was the trend before the Easter Sunday attacks,” Mr. Fernando said. 

 
The Yahapalana regime had the chance to investigate the April 21 terror attacks. They too appointed committees including a Parliamentary Select Committee. What were their results? Instead of finding those responsible that PSC brought before it, the Intelligence officials made public the information pertaining to national security, further worsening the situation. Those now accusing the PCoI of failing to identify the masterminds of the attacks were in that PSC then. Why didn’t they make such identifications? Did the Yahapalana regime implement at least a single recommendation made by that PSC? Soon after receipt of this PCoI report, the President presented it to the Cabinet and then to Parliament. A Cabinet subcommittee was appointed to make further suggestions on implantation of the PCoI recommendations. We have completed those tasks and now all is set for the judicial process which will unmask many wrongdoers and offenders responsible for the Easter Sunday crime,” the Minister said.