Sri Lankan Court condemns 15 men for Easter attacks 2019

Ithis means that those 15 men will spend the rest of their lives in jail.

The panel of three judges of the Superior Court also ordered that the property of the convicts be confiscated.

The verdict was given after a long trial that lasted nearly five years.

The attacks that took place on April 21, 2019 targeted three churches and three hotels throughout the country during Easter celebrations.

The attacks, inspired by the Islamic State group, were regarded as one of the most deadly in Sri Lanka's history.

In them 42 foreigners died and communities throughout the country were devastated.

The panel of three judges of the Superior Court issued the verdict surrounded by strong security, with hundreds of police officers posted to the court.

Authorities filed 23,270 charges in 2021 against 24 suspects accused of planning or inspiring those attacks.

The charges included murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and crimes with firearms and explosives under the Terrorism Prevention Act.

None of those believed to have participated directly in the attacks are alive.

Two groups of Islamic militants based in Sri Lanka were accused of carrying out the bombings.

The Sri Lankan Catholic Church claimed, without presenting evidence, that those identified so far as the perpetrators of the crimes are not the mentors behind the attacks, and that there was a greater conspiracy in these attacks.

A parliamentary committee found that the police and those responsible for information services did not act on the basis of repeated intelligence warnings about the attacks.

In July, a former chief of police and a former high-ranking official of the Ministry of Defense were also sentenced to the death penalty for not acting quickly before the foreign intelligence warnings about possible attacks.

Sri Lanka has not executed death sentences since 1976, which means death sentences usually result in life imprisonment.

After the attacks, allegations emerged that the attackers had links with Sri Lankan state intelligence services.

But the country's Ministry of Defense denied any involvement.

In February, police arrested Suresh Salley, former chief of intelligence and retired army major general, for his connection with the bombings. The government claimed that Salley, who is still detained, had prior knowledge of the attacks and actively conspired to carry them out.

Salley was a prominent military intelligence officer credited for playing an important role in the campaign that ended the country's civil war in 2009.

The attacks shook the island and revived memories of the 26-year conflict with the Tamil Liberation Tigers Eelam, better known as the Tamile Tigers, a separatist group fighting to create an independent state for the Tamil minority of Sri Lanka.