Sri Lanka's Major General Suresh Sallay, the former Director of the State Intelligence Service, has been arrested by authorities in connection with the ongoing investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings. The arrest took place on Wednesday morning by officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
The arrest follows revelations made in a Channel 4 documentary which implicated high-ranking Sri Lankan government officials, including Sallay, in the tragic bombings. The documentary, which aired as part of the British television channel’s Dispatches program in 2023, was based on the testimony of whistleblowers, one of whom, Hanzeer Azad Maulana, named Sallay as one of the key figures involved in orchestrating the deadly attacks.
The bombings on April 21, 2019, targeted churches and luxury hotels, resulting in the deaths of 269 people. The investigation into the attacks has been marred by questions surrounding the involvement of top officials, including the Rajapaksa family and military intelligence, with several individuals now facing intense scrutiny.
Maj. Gen. Sallay has consistently denied any involvement in the bombings, insisting that he was not in Sri Lanka during key events leading up to the attacks. In an interview with Channel 4, Sallay stated that he was stationed in Malaysia as the Minister Counsellor for Sri Lanka’s government from 2016 to 2018, making claims of his meetings with National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) leader Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran in 2018 "baseless." He further emphasized that he was in India on the day of the attacks, residing at the National Defence College (NDC), and that his movements during that time could be verified by Indian authorities.
Sallay refuted claims made by Channel 4 regarding a phone conversation he allegedly had with one of the cadres of former paramilitary leader Pillayan, directing them to meet a person outside Hotel Taj Samudra. He asserted that during his assignment in Malaysia, he had only visited Colombo once, in December 2017, to assist with an official inquiry.
Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, commonly known as Pillayan was arrested last year over the abduction and disappearance of Vice Chancellor of the Eastern University. It was also reported at the time that the arrest was also in connection to his involvement in the Easter Sunday bombings.
Meanwhile Sallay has been a highly controversial figure within Sri Lanka’s military intelligence apparatus. In 2016, he was removed from his position as the chief of army intelligence by then-President Maithripala Sirisena, following accusations of causing rifts within the coalition government. This decision came after public outcry from civil society figures, including Professor Sarath Wijesuriya, who accused Sallay of undermining the President and stoking tensions within the government.
Notably, the involvement of military intelligence, which Sallay headed, has been linked to several high-profile incidents, including the assassination of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge, the abduction and disappearance of journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda, and the attempted murder of journalist Upali Thennakoon.
The controversy surrounding Sallay's tenure as head of military intelligence deepened following his removal, with some accusing him of orchestrating covert operations aimed at destabilizing the country. The allegations of his involvement in the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks have further fueled suspicions about the role of military intelligence in the wider political and security landscape of Sri Lanka.
Sallay had been previously removed from a posting due to links with military-backed gangs causing unrest in Jaffna, before he was appointed the head of State Intelligence Service (SIS) by Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He held the post of Sri Lanka’s Director of Military Intelligence (DMI) when a wave of unrest swept through the Jaffna peninsula in 2016, which authorities blamed on the ‘Aava gang’.
The Sri Lankan president has promoted a former military intelligence director to the rank of Major General, despite his role in a number of abuses including the reported forced confession and denial of medical treatment of a Tamil doctor who served during the massacres at Mullivaikkal in 2009.
Previously, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) documented how Sallay reportedly forced Dr Thurairajah Varatharajah into giving false testimony, just days after the armed conflict had ended with tens of thousands of Tamils massacred. Dr Varatharajah was detained for approximately 100 days and coerced into giving false testimony in a staged news conference in Colombo. Sallay reportedly used as leverage the fact that Dr Varatharajah needed essential surgery on his arm to force him into the press conference, where they were instructed to state that only 650 people had died during the final phase of the massacres.
