PCoI into Easter Sunday bombings Fmr Dir. SIS ended call sans detailed info: Ex-CNI Call disconnected abruptly

By Yoshitha Perera   

After receiving the reliable intelligence information from a foreign counterpart on April 20, 2019, about imminent coordinated terror attacks, former State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena called Chief of National Intelligence (CNI) Sisira Mendis, but in the middle of the conversation, the former SIS Director disconnected the call without providing detailed information, it was informed at the PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks, on Tuesday.   

“On April 20, 2019, when I was getting ready to go for the Easter Vigil Mass, I got a call from Mr. Jayawardena and he said that the foreign intelligence information was a problem. I said the IGP had to take necessary action regarding the foreign intelligence information. And before ending the conversation Jayawardena disconnected the call and he never contacted me again,” former CNI Sisira Mendis said.   

Mr. Mendis added that even though former SIS Director Jayawardena contacted him on April 19, 2019 after the bicycle bomb blast in Kattankudy, he had never mentioned that the Kattankudy incident was a ‘dry run’ conducted by Zahran Hashim.   

“He never informed me that Zahran was behind the explosion which occurred in Kattankudy on April 16, 2019. Besides, the former SIS Director contacted me after three days of the particular explosion,” he said.   Former CNI further said that he got to know about the coordinated terror attack which occurred on April 21, 2019 from one of his relatives who lives in Katana.