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Sri Lanka’s ex-police chief sentenced to death over Easter bombings that killed 260
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Former Sri Lankan police chief Pujith Jayasundara leaves after an inspection at St. Anthony's church that was targeted in the 2019 attacks. He has been found guilty of criminal negligence over the bombings. (AP/File)
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Sri Lankan Army soldiers secure the area around St. Anthony Shrine after a blast in Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 21, 2019. (AP/File)
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Updated 31 July 2026 18:38
AP
July 31, 202614:31
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- Pujith Jayasundara found guilty of criminal negligence that allowed Daesh-inspired bomb attacks in 2019
- Police and intelligence officials failed to act on repeated intelligence warnings of the attacks
A death penalty in Sri Lanka typically means life in prison because the country has had an informal moratorium on executions since 1976. Current President Anura Kumara Dissanayake supports maintaining the moratorium.
The near-simultaneous bombings in 2019 were carried out at three tourist hotels and three churches — two of them Catholic and one Protest — and killed 42 foreigners.
A parliamentary committee found that police and intelligence officials failed to act on repeated intelligence warnings of the attacks.
Jayasundara has the right to appeal Friday’s verdict by the three-member High Court bench.
The court was to deliver another ruling later Friday on Hemasiri Fernando, former secretary to the Defense Ministry, on the same charge.
Two Sri Lanka-based militant groups were accused of carrying out the bombings, and none of those believed to have been directly involved are living. Separate trials are taking place for people allegedly connected with the perpetrators.
Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church has claimed that those identified so far as perpetrators are not the masterminds behind the bombings, and that there was a bigger conspiracy behind the attacks.
