By: Isuru Parakrama
October 21, Colombo (LNW): Pivithuru Hela Urumaya Leader Udaya Gammanpila has issued a stern warning to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, threatening to reveal confidential reports linked to the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks, which had claimed over 270 lives.
At a briefing today (21), Gammanpila alleged that the current President has withheld critical documents pertaining to the incident.
These reports, according to Gammanpila, contain vital information about the role of state officials in failing to prevent the attack, despite intelligence warnings.
Gammanpila, a controversial figure who has previously been accused of exploiting the tragedy to stoke ethnic tensions for political gain in a bid to bringforth his then leadership Gotabaya Rajapaksa to power, gave the President until October 21 to release these reports.
However, political analysts suggested long before the ultimatum given to the President that the so-called ‘secret reports’ Gammanpila refers to are tied to the recent Channel 4 documentary, which alleges collusion between certain political leaders, government officials and Islamic extremists behind the attacks.
The reports in question, known as the ‘Imam Report’ and ‘Alwis Report’, allegedly implicate key figures in the current administration, including those now serving in high-level security positions.
A particular focus of Gammanpila’s accusations is Ravi Seneviratne, the current Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security, and Shani Abeysekara, Director of the Central Criminal Intelligence Analysis Bureau. Both men have been linked to the National People’s Power (NPP)-led government and have been speculated to have acted as whistleblowers in providing information for the Channel 4 documentary.
In his address, Gammanpila also called for the immediate dismissal of Seneviratne, who he accused of being named in a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) report for failing to act on intelligence that could have prevented the attacks.
According to the PCoI, the State Intelligence Service (SIS) had alerted Seneviratne, then a Senior DIG in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), as early as April 2019 about the National Thowheed Jamaath’s (NTJ) plans for a series of suicide bombings, yet no action was taken.
As tensions rise, Gammanpila announced his decision to release one of the reports today and another next Monday if the President continues to withhold them.
His manoeuvre appears calculated to exert pressure on the NPP government, placing the blame for unresolved justice over the Easter Sunday attacks squarely on key officials now in power. Gammanpila proposed that even an impeachment can be formulated for the ousting of Dissananayake over what he demonstrated as the President’s attempt of violating the Constitution by hiding the truth.
However, it should also be noted that the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya Leader made no mentioning of the ‘missing PCoI report pages’ containing statements of over one thousand witnesses to the attack, and the report which ex-President Maithripala Sirisena – who had served as the Head of State during the occurrence of the attack – had claimed to have handed over to his successor Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The two claims had largely earned public attention years back, yet remain unsubstantiated.
In stark contrast to Gammanpila’s claims, Seneviratne and Abeysekara had previously made an in-depth elaboration on their role played during the investigations into the Easter Sunday genocide, alleging that the military intelligence had deliberately misled the Police.
Meanwhile, President Dissanayake emphasised that he has instructed the CID and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to conduct a robust probe into the attacks, promising a thorough investigation into the event.
He criticised attempts to suppress the investigation over two reports produced when Ranil Wickremesinghe served as the President, referring Gammanpila to have awakened from “a coma” after five years of silence since the attack.
Dissanayake stressed that both of the reports were handed over under Wickremesinghe’s purview, adding that neither of them are reports from investigative committees.
The President pledged that the government is committed to conducting a fair investigation and revealing the truth, asserting that there is nothing for them to hide or anyone to protect.
In a parallel development, certain political figures backing the current NPP regime criticised Gammanpila’s attempts to unearth “state secrets,” which have largely been met with damnation from political analysts, who claimed that the public has a democratic right to know the truth regardless of its nature.
