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No one sure if ISIS behind Easter blasts, says Dayasiri
Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera, who earlier refused to appear before the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) investigating the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, gave evidence this week after being issued summons for a second time.
SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera makes a point while testifying before the PSC. Pic by Sameera Weerasekera
Mr Jayasekera was called before the PSC over comments he made during an interview he gave to a private television channel where he questioned as to why the suicide bomber at the Taj Samudra Hotel had failed to detonate the bomb there.
Also this week, failures in intelligence sharing was again highlighted, when Eastern Province Senior Deputy Inspector General Kapila Jayasekera told the PSC that he did not receive a copy of an intelligence report forwarded by the Inspector General of Police regarding Zahran Hashim, though the report sent to the IGP by the State Intelligence Service (SIS) had noted that Kattankudy in the Eastern Province was where the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) was based.
Published below are extracts of the PSC proceedings:
SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera
All 225 parliamentarians are being accused of knowing about this attack beforehand. My security officers never informed me of such a threat and as such, I don’t believe that all MPs knew of this information.
What I was referring to in the TV interview was that I do have a question as to why the bomb at the Taj Samudra Hotel failed to go off. I asked the journalist to investigate this further. We have questions as to why the bomber didn’t blow himself up at that hotel whereas the other bombers did so elsewhere. Was it because the detonators malfunctioned or that some VIPs were here? Why did he then detonate the bomb in Dehiwala? I think these are questions that the security agencies and even this committee can look into.
I don’t have specific facts on this incident, but as politicians, we do get various bits of information from time to time. That’s why I told the interviewer that I would reveal more information in future.
A credible investigation is needed to find out why the bomber abruptly left the hotel that morning after coming down to breakfast. It wouldn’t be hard to find out who stayed at the Taj Samudra at the time. This could clear up suspicions.
As a politician, it is my belief that an external force used Zahran to achieve its objectives. The Government should look into how Zahran became a suicide terrorist. You are all aware that various countries are trying to further their own agendas in this country. It is reasonable to assume that such a foreign entity will try to use these elements to cause an internal crisis within the country.
No one has so far been able to conclusively determine that ISIS was behind this attack. This has created a situation in society where people’s suspicions are shared. As such, they believe that incidents such as this could happen again.
SDIG-Eastern Province Kapila Jayasekera:
I took over as SDIG-Eastern Province on August 24, 2017. I knew about Zahran as he had an arrest warrant on him and he and several others had gone into hiding after a clash between two Muslim groups in Kattankudy in March 2017. The file relating to the progress of investigations into this incident made its way up and down the police ranks but other than that, Zahran did not figure prominently as he was just another suspect who had a warrant out for his arrest.
I oversee 48 police stations in the province and all have suspects who have warrants out for their arrest, sometimes for far more serious crimes than what Zahran had been accused of at the time.
We hold meetings with intelligence officers in the area periodically but did not receive any intelligence regarding Zahran.
On the night of April 17, the Kattankudy Police received a complaint that a motorbike was burning at a land there. The OIC of the station called me after going there. I instructed him to secure the location and to send a team of SOCO (Scene of Crime Officers) the following day and call me. By April 18 afternoon, we were able to trace the registration numbers of the motorbike and found that it had changed hands with several owners before finally ending up with a person named Gerard.
I informed the IGP of this incident and recommended that the investigation be quickly handed over to the CID.
We don’t have a direct link with the SIS. Any intelligence report the SIS sends has to come to us from the IGP.
I did not receive a letter from the IGP containing intelligence of an impending attack or about Zahran and his group being involved in terrorist activities.
I accept that there seems to have been a problem in sharing information. That might be because some of the information was unconfirmed and required verification.
The PSC comprises Deputy Speaker Ananda Kumarasiri (Chairperson), Ravi Karunanayake, Rajitha Senaratne, Jayampathy Wickramaratne, Rauff Hakeem, Ashu Marasinghe, Nalinda Jayathissa, M A Sumanthiran and Sarath Fonseka.
| Controversial contents in Islam textbooks | |
| Some Islamic school textbooks published from 1980s up until 2013 did state that the punishment for leaving Islam was death, senior education officials told the PSC this week.Giving evidence before the PSC, Education Ministry Secretary M.N. Ranasinghe and Education Publication Department Commissioner General Jayantha Wickramanayake said the textbooks published in Sinhala and Tamil had set out various crimes and their punishments under Islamic law. The books had been published from the 1980s and then revised in 2000. However, this entire chapter was removed from the textbooks after 2013, they told the committee. Mr. Wickramanayake said the books were compiled by a panel consisting of university lecturers, scholars and teachers and must also then be approved by an advisory board. PSC member Rauff Hakeem noted that only a few countries where Islam was the State religion enacted the death penalty as punishment for leaving Islam. He added that many of these countries, too, had done away with the practice after signing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Moreover, such laws were not included in the country’s Criminal Procedure Code and have no legal standing, Mr. Hakeem pointed out. He stressed that it was unnecessary to have a further controversy over the issue as the editorial board had dropped the chapter. |