The Colombo Special Trial-at-Bar will deliver its verdict on Tuesday (22 September) in the main case filed over the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, Hiru News reported.
The ruling will come from a three-member bench of Judges Navaratne Marasinghe, Sujeewa Nissanka and Ramanathan Kannan.
Update, Tuesday 22 September: Both NewsFirst and Hiru News confirmed on Tuesday morning that the verdict is fixed for delivery today.
The verdict has now been delivered. On Tuesday afternoon the Trial-at-Bar convicted 15 of the 24 accused on all charges and acquitted the remaining nine. Sentencing was taken up immediately afterwards. This article covers the scheduled hearing; see the linked report for the outcome.
What is being decided
The Attorney General has charged 24 defendants, including Naufar Maulana, under 23,270 counts covering conspiracy and aiding and abetting the eight suicide bombers, among them Zahran Hashim, who carried out the coordinated bombings of churches and hotels on 21 April 2019.
During the trial the court accepted 10 confessions made by the accused as evidence, and 2,076 items were marked as exhibits — including concealed explosives, sharp weapons and firearms.
The attacks killed 269 people, among them close to 40 foreign tourists and 35 children, and injured a further 577.
The scale of the trial itself
NewsFirst’s Tuesday filing adds the proceedings’ dimensions, which neither earlier report gave.
The case was brought under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and ran for close to five years. The Trial-at-Bar concluded hearings on 24 August and fixed Tuesday for judgment. 2,309 witnesses testified for the prosecution.
One of the accused died while the trial was in progress. The charge sheet named 24; the bench is therefore ruling on fewer living defendants than that figure implies, and neither outlet says who died, when, or whether the count of 24 has been formally amended.
Hiru puts the number of bombing sites at eight, against the six churches and hotels usually enumerated. The targets spanned the Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa areas.
A second Easter matter is before a different court today
Separately, the Director of the Colombo National Hospital was ordered to appear today over the failure to submit medical reports concerning Major General Suresh Sallay, the former State Intelligence Service chief, who is receiving treatment at the hospital.
The Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court issued the notice on 15 September, directing the director to appear and show cause. Sallay was arrested in connection with the Easter investigations, which Hiru notes are still continuing seven years on.
This is not the case decided in July
The distinction matters, because the phrase “Easter Sunday verdict” has already been used this year for a different proceeding.
On 31 July, a separate Colombo Trial-at-Bar — a different bench — convicted former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara and former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando of criminal dereliction of duty and sentenced both to death for failing to act on prior intelligence warnings. That case was about negligence by officials who did not stop the attacks.
Tuesday’s verdict concerns the opposite end of the case: the alleged planning and support network behind the bombers themselves. The two trials share a subject and nothing else — different defendants, different charges, different judges.
The families marked their 89th month of protest on the eve of the verdict
Victims’ families gathered at Katuwapitiya junction in Negombo on Monday for a peaceful protest organised by the Negombo Citizens’ Committee, demanding truth and justice over the attacks. Organisers said it was the eighty-ninth consecutive monthly protest they have held.
The location is not incidental. Katuwapitiya Church was the single deadliest of the six bombings, where 108 worshippers were killed — which is why the monthly vigil has been held at that junction rather than in Colombo.
Eighty-nine months is a little over seven years and four months — meaning the families have assembled every month since shortly after the bombings, without a verdict in the main case. Participants said they are following Tuesday’s ruling closely and expect an outcome that delivers justice to those killed and injured and to their families.
A parallel thread on Sallay
Separately, the Attorney General’s Department recently told the court that statements are expected from around 10 Opposition Members of Parliament who made claims in Parliament about the alleged involvement of former State Intelligence Service Director Major General Suresh Sallay in the attacks.
The department told the court it believes the MPs made those statements based on credible information — an unusually supportive characterisation of parliamentary allegations by the prosecuting authority. That inquiry is separate from Tuesday’s verdict and remains open.
Not reported
Hiru does not say how many of the 24 accused are in custody, whether all will be present for the verdict, what sentences the charges carry on conviction, or whether the court will deliver verdict and sentence on the same day. It does not name the other 23 defendants, break down the 23,270 counts, or say whose confessions the court admitted. The Archdiocese of Colombo’s stated opposition to the death penalty in these cases has not been revisited ahead of this ruling.
Seven years and five months after the bombings, this is the verdict on who is held responsible for carrying them out.
