Sri Lanka cardinal seeks UN probe into 2019 Easter bombings

Head of the country’s Roman Catholic Church tells UNHCR the massacre now appears to be ‘a grand political plot’. The head of Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic Church has urged the United Nations to investigate the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 279 people, calling the massacre a “political plot”. “However, subsequent investigations indicate that this massacre was part of a grand political plot.” The Church has previously suggested that the attacks, which targeted three churches and three hotels in Colombo in April 2019, helped Gotabaya Rajapaksa win the presidential elections in November of the same year. “We earnestly call upon the UNHRC and all its member countries to support the continuation of evidence gathering initiated by the Council last year and to devise a means to ensure an investigation to unravel the truth behind the Easter Sunday massacre,” the cardinal said. Last month, Sri Lanka’s High Court acquitted two top officials accused of “crime against humanity” for failing to prevent the Easter Sunday bombings.