COLOMBO, May 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Sri Lanka’s President announced on Monday
he will allow tough emergency laws to lapse within a month because the
security situation was “99 percent back to normal” following the Easter
bombings.
Maithripala Sirisena told Colombo-based diplomats from Australia, Canada,
Japan, the US and European states that security forces were successful in
getting at all those responsible for the April 21 bombings.
Sirisena declared a state of emergency giving sweeping powers to the
military to arrest and detain suspects a day after the bombings that killed
258 people and wounded nearly 500.
The suicide bombings against three Christian churches and three luxury
hotels were blamed on a local jihadi group, the National Thowheeth Jama’ath
which has since been banned under the emergency.
“The emergency was declared to deal with the immediate security
situation,” Sirisena’s office quoted him as saying. “However, it will not be
necessary to extend this any further.”
The emergency can be declared for a month at a time. Sirisena extended the
period on May 22 and it will lapse in a month unless he uses his executive
power to prolong it.
Sirisena said he, as the minister of defence and law and order, was
restructuring the security forces to ensure there will be no repetition of
the terror attacks that shattered a decade-long peace in the country.
The attacks exposed serious security failures. Sirisena has ordered an
investigation into why local authorities failed to act on precise
intelligence from neighbouring India that jihadists were about to hit
Christian churches and other targets in Sri Lanka.
The mainly Buddhist nation of 21 million people was about to mark a decade
since ending a 37-year-long Tamil separatist war when Islamic extremists
struck.
Sirisena reiterated to foreign envoys that Sri Lankan security forces have
either arrested or killed all those directly involved in the Easter Sunday
bombings.
Police say just over 100 people, including 10 women are in custody in
connection with the attacks.
Security forces also detained a further 100 suspects in four days of
cordon-and-search operations since Thursday, according to military officials.