Colombo Jailed Fifteen for the Easter Bombings. The Church Says Whoever Ordered Them Is Not in the Dock.
Three judges in Colombo convicted fifteen men on Tuesday for helping the Easter Sunday 2019 bombers, who killed 279 people in three churches and three hotels. The Archdiocese welcomed the verdict and called it one part of the case. The former spy chief in custody has not been tried.
Teresa Fernando was wounded in the head on Easter Sunday 2019. On Tuesday she came to the High Court in Colombo to hear the verdict.
"We came here today as victims of this attack to receive justice," she told reporters. "Whatever the court says... we will bow our heads and accept it."
The court said guilty. Three judges convicted fifteen of the twenty four men in the dock of helping the suicide bombers who struck three churches and three hotels on April 21, 2019. Fourteen were convicted on every count, murder and conspiracy to commit terrorism among them. Nine were acquitted. The fifteen were sent to prison for two hundred years or more.
The Archdiocese of Colombo welcomed the verdict. Then its spokesman said what the Church has said for seven years. The bombers died with the people they killed. The men who helped them are now in prison. The people the Church believes ordered it are not in the dock.
