More than 20 suspects arrested as death toll from Easter Sunday bombings rises to 290

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Sri Lankan authorities received warnings two weeks before the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks that killed at least 290 people, a cabinet spokesman admitted on Monday.

“Fourteen days before these incidents occurred, we had been informed about these incidents,” Rajitha Senaratne told a press conference in the capital, Colombo, a day after the bombings, which also injured at least 500 people.

Senaratne, Sri Lanka’s health minister, also said the names of some of the suspects had been given to authorities earlier this month.

“On 9 April, the chief of national intelligence wrote a letter and in this letter many of the names of the members of the terrorist organisation were written down.”

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The intelligence memo warning about the attacks had named the radical Islamist group National Thowheeth Jama’ath as planning suicide bomb attacks on churches, he said.

But it was unclear whether any new information had emerged since the attacks that firmly established the organisation as their perpetrators.

National Thowheeth Jama’ath is a newly formed group in Sri Lanka committed to a militant and intolerant Islamist ideology. But though it is known for being a virulently anti-Buddhist and has been linked to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues, it has not previously been linked to terrorism. Four of its members were arrested in January.

Experts say it is unlikely the organisation would have been able to rapidly develop the capability to perpetrate a complex attack involving multiple suicide bombings without very significant outside assistance.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A view of the damage at St Sebastian’s church in Negombo. Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombings.

Senaratne told the press conference investigators believed those who had carried out the attacks were all Sri Lankan nationals, but did not rule out that the attackers had international assistance.

Maithripala Sirisena, the Sri Lankan president, will ask for foreign assistance to track international links, his office said.

“The intelligence reports [indicate] that foreign terrorist organizations are behind the local terrorists. Therefore, the president is to seek the assistance of the foreign countries,” it said in a statement.

The president will also declare a nationwide emergency that will go into effect at midnight on Monday local time. This measure, which will grant police and the military extensive powers to detain and interrogate without court orders, was in force at various times during the bloody 26-year civil war with Tamil separatists which ended a decade ago.

The police had 24 suspects in custody on Monday. Police spokesperson Ruwan Gunasekara said they had seized a van and driver they believe transported the suspects into Colombo, and also raided a safe house used by the attackers.

Telecommunications minister, Harin Fernando said: “Right now our biggest priority would be to find what really led these eight or 10 or 12 men to carry out this attack,” he said. “But we are not ruling out a coup as well.”

Senaratne emphasised that the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and his cabinet had not been privy to the warnings about possible attacks because they were not invited to the national security council meetings, which are led by the president.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Soldiers stand guard in front of St Anthony’s shrine on Monday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

“The prime minister was not informed by these letters and revelations,” Senaratne said. “We are not trying to evade responsibility but these are the facts. We were surprised to see these reports.”

The remarks by the prime minister and his cabinet ministers have led to concerns that security failures leading to the attacks will be used by rival politicians and factions to score political points.

The rift between Wickremesinghe and Sirisena is well known, after the president’s unsuccessful attempt to sack the prime minister in October, and there are fears the country could be thrown into political turmoil once again.

Since that constitutional crisis, Sri Lanka’s two most senior leaders have in effect run parallel governments with little communication between the ministries and institutions they each control.

The divide may have deepened the chaos in the aftermath of Sunday’s attacks: the Guardian understands that Wickremesinghe sought to call a security council meeting with the country’s armed forces chiefs in the aftermath of the attacks on Sunday morning but found none of them would come to his resident at Temple Trees without the authorisation of Sirisena, who was overseas at the time.

The country was still on high alert on Monday afternoon. There was chaos outside St Anthony’s church, which had been gutted in one of the blasts, after a suspicious package was discovered in a van that had been parked nearby since Sunday.

Police also discovered 87 bomb detonators at Colombo’s main bus station on Monday afternoon.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Indian newspapers displaying coverage of the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka. Photograph: Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images

While the government-imposed nationwide curfew was initially lifted at 6am, in the wake of the ongoing security concerns authorities announced it would be reinstated from 8pm on Monday until 4am on Tuesday.

In Negombo, north of the capital, yellow crime scene tape stretched around the perimeter of St Sebastian’s church, a day after a blast ripped through the congregation there.

The courtyard was littered with flowers, shattered stained glass and red and pink debris from the building. Catholic sisters and priests took turns peering through the destroyed windows of the church at the carnage inside.

Parts of the roof and walls had been blown away, revealing the bricks and blue tarpaulin underneath. Red candles were still in bunches at the ends of some of the pews.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shoes at St Sebastian’s Catholic church in Negombo. Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

Another priest in the courtyard said he was struggling to contain himself. “If this is done by who I suspect – is this their religion?” he said.

Hundreds of Sri Lankans and at least 39 foreigners – including those from the UK, Turkey, Japan, the Netherlands, China, Portugal, Australia and India – were killed in the coordinated attacks, the worst in Sri Lanka since the civil war ended a decade ago.

The eight blasts, which police confirmed were suicide bomb attacks, seemed designed to cause maximum casualties, targeting worshippers at Easter Sunday services and guests having breakfast in the Shangri-La, Kingsbury and Cinnamon Grand hotels in Colombo.

They saw one young man go into the church with a heavy bag. Dilip Fernando, St Sebastian’s church-goer

Details about those who had died in the attacks began to trickle out slowly on Monday morning. One of the first Sri Lankans confirmed dead was the celebrity chef Shantha Mayadunne, who had been having breakfast at the Shangri-La with her family when the blast went off.

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The police declined say which site had been worst hit or to break down the death toll. However, it is thought at least 50 people were killed at St Sebastian’s church in the seaside town of Negombo and at least 160 people were injured in a blast at St Anthony’s shrine in Colombo.

A government block on social media sites and apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp remained, which the government said was to prevent the spread of misinformation that could further inflame tensions.