By Aruliniyan Mahalingam
When a special three-judge High Court in Colombo convicted 15 men on Sept. 22 over the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, the indictment before it contained 23,270 counts. The judgment describes how the convicted men trained recruits in weapons and religious ideology, collected explosives and rented houses that were later found to hold bomb-making materials. Two of them, the court found, admitted a man injured in a test explosion to a Colombo hospital under a false name in August 2018.
The judgment, written in Sinhala, sets out the evidence against each accused and the court's reasons for accepting or rejecting it. The prosecution called 547 witnesses and produced 2,076 items of evidence over nearly three years. This account is based on the court's findings.
How the charges were built
Nearly all the charges were brought under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. They fall into four groups.
The first count, brought against all 25 original accused, alleged that they conspired with the suicide bombers, all now dead, between Nov. 1, 2017, and April 21, 2019. The court found this charge proved against 15 men and said the evidence of conspiracy existed against them alone.
Counts 2 through 20 accused individual defendants of specific acts. Seven counts alleged "indoctrination," which the Act does not define. The judges turned to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary and the Advanced Law Lexicon and described it as the systematic implanting of social, political or religious ideas to change a person's attitudes permanently while excluding other points of view. They held that extremist preaching aimed at creating an Islamic state in Sri Lanka fell within the Act's offense of spreading words intended to cause religious or communal disharmony, and that a single such act was enough to prove the charge. Other counts in this group concerned two test explosions, the collection of explosives and the sheltering of a suspect.
Counts 21 through 220 charged each accused with abetting each of the eight bombers, one count per bomber per accused. The indictment named them as Alawdeen Ahamed Muath at St. Anthony's Church, Achchi Mohamed Hasthun at St. Sebastian's Church, Mohamed Azam Mohamed Mubarak at the Kingsbury, Zahran Hashim and Mohamed Ibrahim Ilham at the Shangri-La, Mohamed Ibrahim Inshaf Ahamed at the Cinnamon Grand, Mohammed Nasar Mohammed Asath at Zion Church in Batticaloa, and Abdul Latif Jameel Mohamed at a guesthouse in Dehiwala.
Counts 221 through 245 dealt with the death of Chelsea Decaminada, a United States Commerce Department employee killed at the Cinnamon Grand. The court relied on a U.S. government document, entered as an exhibit, which said she had traveled to Colombo with a colleague on official business to organize a workshop for four partner nations and was having breakfast in the hotel restaurant when the bomb went off. The court held that this made her a "specified person," a category that includes foreign officials, under the Act.
Every count from 246 to 23,270 concerned a single victim, killed or injured, at one of the bombing sites, charged separately against each accused. The court held that the bombings were the result of the conspiracy and that the 15 convicted men had abetted each bomber.
Of the original total, 932 charges against the 17th accused, Yasin Bawa Abdul Rauf, were dropped after he died in prison in February 2023. Prosecutors withdrew another 312 as duplicates.
The training camps
Two witnesses, identified in the judgment as Anas and Jawfer Sadiq, provided key testimony about workshops held by the group.
According to Anas, a camp was held at a holiday bungalow in Shanthipura, Nuwara Eliya, in April or May 2018 under the leadership of Zahran Hashim, the Shangri-La bomber. He testified that participants were taught concepts of offensive jihad and took a pledge accepting Sri Lanka as a state subject to the Islamic State.
The court found that the 1st accused, Mohammed Ibrahim Mohammed Naufer, known as Naufer Moulavi, preached at the Nuwara Eliya camp that armed fighting was required and that Sri Lanka should be brought under Islamic State rule. The judges said this alone proved the indoctrination charge against him. They also accepted Anas's account that Mr. Naufer and Zahran were the resource persons at a similar camp in Hambantota in September 2018, attended by about 10 young men, where a T-56 assault rifle was present.
The court also relied on Mr. Naufer's own statement to an assistant superintendent of police. In it, the judges wrote, he said the leaders of National Thowheed Jamath held two-day workshops in Shanthipura, Blackpool, Kandy and Hambantota, each attended by 15 to 20 people, that he preached at them, and that Islamic State videos were shown. In the same statement he said the 3rd accused came to the Anuradhapura home of Safi Moulavi, the 10th accused, when allegiance was sworn to the Islamic State there.
The 3rd accused, Hayathu Mohammed Ahamed Milhan, was found to have taught weapons at the Nuwara Eliya camp. Anas testified that Mr. Milhan introduced T-56 rifles and 9-millimeter pistols to the young men there, showed them how to aim, and trained them to strip and reassemble the pistols. Anas said Zahran had given Mr. Milhan the name Abu Seela. Anas could not identify him in court after about seven years, but the judges noted his testimony that only one person named Milhan attended, and that Mr. Naufer's statement also placed Mr. Milhan at the camp.
The 4th, 5th and 9th accused were convicted of indoctrination on the evidence of Jawfer Sadiq. He testified that in December 2018, extremist sermons were delivered to about 40 young men at the Thawheed mosque in Delgahagoda, Mawanella, and that the 4th and 5th accused organized the session. The court also accepted evidence that the 1st, 4th and 9th accused preached at workshops in Nuwara Eliya, Kandy and Hambantota.
The 10th accused, Abdul Latif Mohamed Safi, was convicted of indoctrination on evidence that he attended the Nuwara Eliya camp and a workshop at Sippikulam in Hambantota.
The 15th accused, Mohammed Haniffa Zainul Abdeen, told a magistrate that he attended the Shanthipura camp, the court found. The man who ran the Sippikulam bungalow testified that Mr. Abdeen booked it on four occasions in 2018 and arrived each time by van with a group of people.
The indoctrination charge against the 14th accused, Rashid Mohamed Ibrahim, failed. The judges wrote that no witness gave any evidence that he committed the offense.
The first test blast and the hospital cover-up
On or about Aug. 26, 2018, nearly eight months before the attacks, Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Rilwan, a brother of Zahran, set off an explosive device as a test at Ollikulam in Kattankudy and suffered serious injuries to his hands and eyes. Mr. Rilwan was killed on April 26, 2019, five days after the Easter Sunday attacks, in explosions at a safe house in Sainthamaruthu, according to police accounts at the time.
The court found that the 8th accused, Abdul Manaf Mohamed Firdous, carried out that test with Mr. Rilwan. It relied on other evidence and on facts disclosed in the confession of the 18th accused, Rasik Raza Hussain. The court said a confession by the 11th accused also confirmed that Mr. Rilwan had carried out the test.
Two men were convicted of hiding Mr. Rilwan afterward. The judges found that the 2nd accused, Mohamed Sarif Adam Lebbe, known as Gafoor Mama, and the 4th accused, Mohamed Ibrahim Sadiq Abdullah, admitted him to the National Hospital in Colombo on Aug. 27, 2018, under a false identity. Hospital records showed he was placed in ward 59 under the name of the 4th accused's younger brother, M.I. Sahid, with the 4th accused's Mawanella address in place of Mr. Rilwan's home in Kattankudy. The guardian's phone number on the form belonged to the 4th accused. The government examiner of questioned documents testified that the 2nd accused signed the admission form in Tamil. Hospital staff were told that the injuries came from an exploding gas cylinder.
Photographs and the testimony of a physiotherapist and a doctor established that the patient was Mr. Rilwan, the court found. A witness testified that the 2nd accused's daughter was married to Zahran's brother Zaini. The judges rejected the 4th accused's statement from the dock that he had helped an injured stranger for humanitarian reasons, calling it not credible.
The buried explosives
The 8th and 18th accused were convicted of collecting explosives. The court found that on or about Aug. 26, 2018, at Palamunai, they gathered with others a stock of RDX and TNT, along with electrical circuits, batteries and rolls of wire. The explosives were found buried at seven places on land belonging to the late 17th accused. Each of the two men separately led the police to the locations, evidence that Section 27 of the Evidence Ordinance allows the court to admit. The judges said this showed the materials had been hidden with a common intention.
The second test blast
On April 16, 2019, five days before the attacks, a motor scooter with the registration WP BCQ-0304 was blown up on a private plot known as Kirithona Wattha in Palamunai. The police first received a complaint that a motorcycle had been set on fire. An inspector from the Batticaloa scene-of-crime unit testified that roofing sheets at the site had been blown off and parts of the scooter scattered. The government analyst found that a bomb made with urea nitrate and 6.2-millimeter steel balls had been placed under the rider's seat and detonated so that it would throw fragments outward.
Investigators traced the scooter through its chassis number to its registered owner, then to a dealer who had sold it on. The buyer had used the identity card of Gerard Yasasthi Silva, whose wallet was lost in Palaviya, Puttalam, in May 2018. The police testified that they found the wallet in the possession of the 5th accused, Mohamed Ibrahim Sahid Abdul Haq,, when they arrested him. The court also cited statements in which the 5th and 9th accused described going to a motorcycle dealer in Ederamulla, trading in an old bike and using a Sinhalese man's identity card to buy two new scooters. The judges found the 5th accused guilty of abetting the test.
The 10th accused faced the same charge. The court said no evidence was presented connecting him to the blast and acquitted him on that count. He was convicted on all his other charges.
The explosives purchases
The court said one of the most important findings of the trial was that the same type of explosive was used in all the Easter Sunday bombs. Government analysts testified that the devices used ordinary detonators converted to electric ones, and water gel, an explosive used to break rock in quarries. Leftover water gel cartridges were recovered at Sainthamaruthu.
The 16th accused, Mohamed Mustafa Mohamed Haris, was convicted of collecting explosives at Narammala between March 1 and April 6, 2019. A witness, Isadeen Mohamed Jirisuf, testified that on four occasions in February, March and April 2019, the 16th accused came to his house and took away 850 water gel cartridges, 1,700 or 1,800 detonators, and six or seven rolls of safety fuse. A second witness testified that the 16th accused had asked him for about 100 sticks of dynamite. The 16th accused said from the dock that he needed quarry explosives to build a kitchen and a toilet. The judges rejected that explanation, citing the quantity.
The 2nd, 3rd and 8th accused were convicted of abetting the 16th accused. The court found that statements by the 3rd and 8th accused led the police to a large stock of gelatin sticks and detonators at Ollikulam on June 27, 2019.
The evidence against the 19th accused, Kachchi Mohammed Mohammed Jemsith, concerned nitric acid. A worker at New Nachchathra, a business in Sea Street, Colombo, that sells supplies to jewelers, testified that he sold nitric acid to the 19th accused, a customer of several years who said he worked with gold. Government analysts testified that the main explosive in the bombs was urea nitrate, made by reacting nitric acid with urea.
The safe houses
The judgment examines more than a dozen houses and training sites the group used, from Wellawatte and Wattala to Nintavur, Sainthamaruthu and Hambantota.
The most detailed findings concern Nasmiya Villa on Parattha Road in Panadura. The court found it was rented in February 2019 by Mohamed Azam Mohamed Mubarak, the Kingsbury bomber, and the 6th accused, Mohamed Anwar Mohamed Riskan, who signed the lease as a witness. Investigators found steel balls, explosive material, a large number of plastic bags printed with the name of a steel-ball manufacturer, bags from the retailer Decathlon of the kind the bombers carried, and a piece of PVC pipe bearing residue of ammonium nitrate, the explosive found in water gel. The fingerprint bureau recovered prints of the 6th and 7th accused and a palm print of Rudaina, Zahran's young daughter, which the court said showed that Zahran had stayed there with her.
On April 20, 2019, the day before the attacks, a large load of goods was moved from the house to homes in Sennal Gramam near Kalmunai and in Sainthamaruthu. Some days after the attacks, a large explosion occurred at the Sainthamaruthu house. A lorry driver identified the 6th accused in court as the man who rode with him when he carried goods from a house in Katuwapitiya to Sammanthurai, Nintavur and Sennal Gramam. Plastic cans recovered from one of the houses contained nitric and sulfuric acid, according to the government analyst.
The court found that the 7th accused, Mohamed Mansoor Mohamed Sanasdeen, whose prints were also at Nasmiya Villa, acted with the 6th accused and Mubarak with a common purpose.
The 10th and 11th accused were tied to a house on Janapada Mawatha in Daluwakotuwa. The court found that the 10th accused leased it for a year with the help of the 11th accused, Husainul Rizvi Khalid Sameer, who said it was needed to house a patient. A witness testified that he met the 11th accused and had about 34 phone calls with him about the rental. The lease was witnessed by Mohamed Hasthun, who later bombed St. Sebastian's Church in Katuwapitiya.
The man who stayed silent
The 6th accused conducted his own defense, asked no questions of any witness, and chose to remain silent when called on to answer the case. Every other accused made a statement from the dock. The judges said they understood that the burden of proof rests on the prosecution and that an accused may stay silent. They then applied the Ellenborough dictum, citing Sri Lankan Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions, which allows a court to draw inferences when an accused offers no explanation for highly incriminating evidence. Given the lease, the fingerprints and the lorry driver's testimony, they found the charges against him proved.
Why nine men were acquitted
The court acquitted the 12th, 13th, 14th and 20th through 25th accused of every charge. Apart from the 14th accused, who also faced the indoctrination count, these men were charged only with conspiracy and with abetting the bombers. The judges held that the evidence of conspiracy existed only against the 15 men they convicted, and the abetment counts against the others failed as a result.
How the court treated the evidence
The judges said they considered only legal evidence and disregarded speculation about the accused on social media. They applied rules that limit the use of confessions. A statement made to a magistrate under Section 127 of the Code of Criminal Procedure can be used only against the person who made it. A statement to a senior police officer under Section 16(1) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act can be used against a co-accused only if independent evidence corroborates its material details. In the scooter case, for example, the court found that the independent evidence confirmed the 9th accused's account of how the scooters were bought.
The same three judges sentenced the 15 men later that day to rigorous imprisonment ranging from 200 to 260 years.
