According to a British publication revealed on Monday, Suresh Sallay, Sri Lanka’s current director of intelligence, participated in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that left 279 people dead, including 45 foreigners.
The scheme was conceived by Major General Suresh Sallay while he was employed by the Directorate of Military Intelligence with the intention of sowing unrest to pave the way for Rajapaksas’ comeback to power.
According to the Times newspaper, Sally collaborated with the Easter Sunday bombers to undermine the nation.
The interviewee alleges that the deadly attacks were planned by Sri Lanka’s military intelligence, according to a report in the newspaper that will run on Britain’s Channel 4 on Tuesday.
Soon after Gotabaya Rajapaksa assumed office in November 2019, Sallay was appointed as the SIS’s chief. President Ranil Wickremesinghe just extended his contract by one year.
Maulana was cited as stating, “Suresh Salley came to me and told me the Rajapaksas need an unsafe situation in Sri Lanka, that’s the only way for Gotabaya to become president.”
“The attack was not planned in just one or two days; the plan was developed over a period of two to three years.”
Neither the SIS nor the government of Sri Lanka responded right away.
In fear for his life, Maulana departed Sri Lanka last year and has applied for refuge in Europe.
According to multiple investigations into the assaults, Sri Lankan authorities disregarded warnings sent by a spy agency in neighbouring India 17 days before the planned suicide bombings.
Courts have previously been informed of allegations that Sri Lankan intelligence agents were involved. Sallay is, however, being specifically charged for the first time with planning the assaults.
According to the Sunday Times, Salley referred to the accusations as “outright false” in a letter to Channel 4 and denied having any dealings with the people included in the article.
He had no link to the bombers and wasn’t in Sri Lanka on the dates of the purported communication with them.
Sallay had previously threatened to sue a priest for making accusations against the military intelligence unit he was leading at the time.
In March of last year, the head of Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic Church requested the UN to look into the Easter Sunday bombings, calling them a “political plot.”
A framework to investigate the assaults, which the authorities have attributed to regional Islamist militants, was urged by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith.
According to Ranjith, “the initial perception of this massacre was that it was solely the product of a handful of Islamic extremists.”
However further investigations have shown that this atrocity was a part of a larger political scheme.
The Church has previously asserted that the assaults were a factor in Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory in the presidential vote that November.
Sallay was appointed by Rajapaksa to lead the SIS, a position that had hitherto been held by a senior police officer, breaking with precedent.
Rajapaksa was removed from office in 2022 and first fled to Singapore and Thailand; however, he has since returned while being closely guarded. Sallay is still in charge of the spy agency. (ECONOMYNEXT)
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