Pair face dereliction of duty and negligence charges after blasts in which more than 250 died

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Sri Lanka’s police chief and its former defence minister have been arrested for alleged negligence leading to the Easter Sunday bombings that killed more than 250 people at churches and hotels.

The former defence secretary, Hemasiri Fernando, and the country’s police chief, Pujith Jayasundara, who was on compulsory leave, were arrested at hospitals on Tuesday. They remain in the hospitals under police custody, according to the police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara.

The arrests came a day after prosecutors asked police to explain why they had not arrested the two former senior officials despite being instructed to do so.

On Monday, the attorney general’s department said in a letter to acting police chief CD Wickremaratne that it had ordered Fernando and Jayasundara to be named as suspects and produced before a court because a presidential commission of inquiry found grounds to charge them with dereliction of duties and criminal negligence.

The letter said crimes the officials were suspected of having committed fall within “grave crimes against humanity” under international law.

Police had reportedly sought to question Fernando and Jayasundara but did not because they had been admitted to hospitals. Fernando resigned after the blasts and Jayasundara was sent on compulsory leave.

Since the 21 April suicide attacks, the government has acknowledged it received intelligence reports about the plot beforehand but failed to act on them.

Both Fernando and Jayasundara appeared before a parliamentary committee inquiring into the bombings and described the security failures. The country’s president, Maithripala Sirisena, however, opposed the parliamentary committee conducting a separate inquiry while court cases were being heard on the attacks.

Fernando told the committee Sirisena was not easily accessible for discussions. Jayasundara said Sirisena asked him after the blasts to take responsibility and resign and said he would be cleared in any subsequent inquiry.

Jayasundara also said Sirisena had asked him not to attend national security council meetings since last October, when Sirisena fired the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, in a power struggle that triggered a seven-week political crisis.

Wickremesinghe was subsequently reinstated by the supreme court.