Cardinal calls govt. not to ’’internationlise’’ Easter Sunday bombing investigations issue

The Catholic Church today (8) condemned a move by the government to what they called 'internationalising" the issue about investigations on the Easter Sunday bombings which left 269 dead.

Archbishop of Colombo,  Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith at a press conference held a short while ago reacting to reports that the government was planning to brief the Vatican on the progress of the investigations on the Easter Sunday attacks  said the government is trying to fool the international community with their sweet talk.

“There is a secret plan hatched by the government to try to undermine the truth and to get international sympathy for their inaction, to hide the facts, and try to manipulate all events surrounding the Easter attack,” said Cardinal Malcom Ranjith.

He said the government has been pushing them from pillar to post without revealing or not interested in finding who is involved in this terror attack. 

“The former Attorney General Dappula de Livera told a Newsfirst Journalist Zulfick Farzan that this is a ‘grand conspiracy’. Actually this kind of a project is a grand conspiracy, a band of 7-8 suicide bombers need brainwashing for a long time, they needed the technology to find and make the bombs, they needed a reason to commit suicide”, the Archbishop said.

“We want to know who is behind the attacks, that is our right. Without giving proper attention to this or investigate carefully, to go and trying to fool the international community in Italy or in the Vatican and trying to appear that everything is fine is not the answer to our requests, because of that we will not stop our activities and we will go ahead with our plan to find justice,” the Cardinal said.

“The Catholic Church will organise a 24-hour prayer programme to ask the Lord to bless us and to help the country solve the Easter Sunday attack problem and the COVID issue,” the Cardinal said.

Archbishop Malcom Ranjith also requested the international community to defend their countries and not defend the Sri Lankan government.

“Two hundred and sixty nine people were murdered in cold blood, their body parts were hanging on the rafters of the roof of church, blood was splattered everywhere, families were completely broken, some people are still on wheelchairs and on beds, permanently disabled. Forty seven foreigners were killed from 14 countries. I want to ask the international community to defend your citizens who died including the United State of America, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and China. Those governments should rise up to this and call on our government to do a transparent and independent investigation. Those tourists came to our country on a touristic visit and not expecting to be blasted to pieces. Foreign governments should apply pressure on Sri Lankan government to investigate on this murder and not try to defend the Sri Lankan government in its nefarious plans,” Cardinal Malcom Ranjith requested.

(Pix by Indika Handuwala)