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ECONOMYNEXT – The Sri Lankan government is still unable to release all the volumes of a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) report on the Easter Sunday attack to the public due to secrecy involved with some evidence, Public Security Minister Tiran Alles said.
The complete PCoI report on 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks was handed over Catholic Bishop’s Conference in April this year by Tiran Alles, four years after the worst attack on religious places in Sri Lanka that killed at least 269 people. The simultaneous suicide attacks were targeted on three Churches and three high end hotels, mainly in Colombo.
However, the government has yet to release the full report to the public amid allegations that some high military officials had a hand in the planning of carnage which was carried out by Islamist extremists.
The Catholic community and its leader Cardinal Malcom Ranjit raised concerns over why former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was not releasing all the volumes of PCoI on the easter probe. President Ranil Wickremesinghe who succeeded Rajapaksa in an unprecedented manner allowed Alles to release the report this year.
“We have given it as a secret document because there are sections you can remember cardinal went on to say that first we were not given anything, then they said there is a section that was hidden,” Alles told reporters in Colombo at a media briefing.
“SECRETIVE DOCUMENTS”
“Presidential Commission…have clearly mentioned that these volumes are secretive documents that these should not be put out. They have mentioned in their report because there are people who have come and given evidence secretly and those are also there in that document,” he said.
The attack led Sri Lanka’s Buddhist majority and Catholic minority to overwhelmingly back former leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the November 2019 election. Ethnic minority Muslims suffered after being suspected of involved in terror activities with anti-Muslim riots.
Rajapaksa’s government was later accused of violating human rights of Muslims as it stood firmly on cremating COVID-dead Muslims against their religious belief despite international call to stop it.
Rajapaksa and his government were ousted by mass public protests.
“Recently when I checked, they (Catholic Bishop’s Conference) are still studying it,” Alles said adding that some Catholics who are not in the Bishop’s Conference have been criticizing the government over the Easter Sunday probe.
Rajapaksa, his aides, military intellegence have denied any involvement in the Easter Sunday attack.
Most Catholics and Cardinal Malcom Ranjit have continuously called for international probe into the Easter Sunday attack. Successive governments have repeatedly rejected such requests. (Colombo/Dec 21/2023)
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