COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s president has cleared investigators to detain the country’s former intelligence chief for up to three months of questioning over his alleged role in the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 279 people, police said Saturday.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake signed an order under the tough Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to hold retired army major general Suresh Sallay for 90 days for questioning by detectives.
Criminal investigators arrested Sallay on Wednesday, making him the most high-profile official netted in the long-running investigation into the bombings, which wounded about 500 people.
Forty-five foreigners were among those killed.
Nine suicide bombers carried out the coordinated attacks on April 21, 2019, targeting two Roman Catholic churches, an evangelical Protestant church and three luxury hotels.
“The President signed the DO (detention order) last night to keep Sallay in custody for 90 days after the initial three-day period he was held,” a police spokesman said.
The PTA allows police to hold suspects for long periods without charge or judicial review. Suspects held under the PTA cannot be released on bail by the courts.
Opposition parties have condemned Sallay’s arrest, calling it a political witch-hunt.
But Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church, which has led a campaign demanding justice for the victims, welcomed the arrest and said police must be allowed to continue their investigation without political interference.
The church had earlier accused former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa of sabotaging police investigations into the bombings after coming to power on the back of them.
Two days after the attacks, Rajapaksa, a retired army officer, declared his candidacy and went on to win the November election in a landslide after promising to stamp out Islamist extremism.
Sri Lanka detains former spy chief over 2019 Easter bombings
https://arab.news/8ytw8
Sri Lanka detains former spy chief over 2019 Easter bombings
- Criminal investigators arrested retired army major general Suresh Sallay on Wednesday
- Nine suicide bombers carried out the coordinated attacks on April 21, 2019
US ‘totally stupid’ to attack Iran during talks: UN ambassador
- “War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents
- “Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression”
GENEVA: The United States made a “totally stupid decision” to attack Iran while in negotiations, and betrayed Gulf nations by trashing their diplomatic efforts, Tehran’s UN ambassador said Tuesday.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, insisted Tehran had no problem with its neighbors, but could not let US bases in the Gulf be used as launchpads for attacks on Iran.
“War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents.
“Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression.
“We will continue our defense until the point that this aggression is stopped,” he said.
On February 26, Washington and Tehran held indirect negotiations in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear program — with the Omani mediators reporting “significant progress.”
Bahreini was present for part of those talks and said “everybody was optimistic” and the US team “agreed to continue negotiations” in Vienna this week.
But Bahreini said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had convinced US President Donald Trump to destroy diplomacy and attack Iran, with strikes starting on Saturday.
“It was a totally stupid decision. They will know in the future how stupid this decision has been. Both of them will understand, because Iran will firmly determine the situation and the destiny of this war,” he said.
“All our neighbors are now disappointed with the betrayal of the United States because everybody was working for diplomacy, particularly Oman.
“The US betrayed everybody.”
- ‘Not a regional war’ -
Tehran has launched strikes against countries in the region that host US bases.
“I cannot accept labelling what we are doing as reprisal. What we are doing is a kind of self-defense,” said Bahreini.
The ambassador said Iran’s problem was not with its neighbors, describing the Gulf countries as friends.
“We are in daily dialogue with our neighbors to convey to them the message that this war is not a war against our neighbors.
“This is not a regional war.
“But we cannot ignore the fact that the US bases in their lands are operational against us.
“In no way we can allow those bases to be used to make military operations against Iran.”
He said Iran’s operations were “exclusively” against US military targets, and said “there has been very serious order given to our military forces not to make any harm to civilians.”
Trump claimed Tuesday that the Iranian leadership “want to talk” but Bahreini insisted no approach had been made to Washington, saying “there hasn’t been any contact from our side” since the war erupted.
