Prof Rohan Gunaratna
Catholic Bishops Conference on October 9, 2023 requested President Ranil Wickramasinghe for Easter Attacks reports by foreign law enforcement and intelligence services. The Catholic Bishops Conference specifically requested for reports by the FBI, British police, and secret services of India, China, Australia and Pakistan. In my book, “Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Massacre- Lessons for the International Community” I refer to a dozen international law enforcement authorities and intelligence services that visited Sri Lanka immediately after the Easter attack. These foreign reports both investigations and assessments are currently held by their domestic counterparts – Sri Lankan law enforcement authorities and intelligence services. During my investigation into the Easter Sunday attack, I have reviewed the foreign reports on the Easter Sunday attack. As these reports are classified – meaning marked “law enforcement sensitive” to “top secret”, “secret”, “confidential” and “restricted”, they should not be made public. The report produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has been released by US government. Based on the investigation conducted by the FBI, the world’s leading law enforcement authority, the US department of justice has charged three defendants who formed a part of the Islamic State Branch of Sri Lanka. They pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, the terrorist movement identified by the FBI and the US Department of Justice (USDOJ) as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). I also interviewed all three of them and I refer to them extensively throughout my book.
The FBI and the USDOJ refers to the three defendants accurately as;
- “Mohamed Naufar, the “second emir” for the group of ISIS supporters that called itself “ISIS in Sri Lanka,” who allegedly led the group’s propaganda efforts, recruited others to join ISIS, and led a series of multi-day military-type trainings;
- Mohamed Anwar Mohamed Riskan, who allegedly helped manufacture the IEDs used in the Easter Attacks; and
- Ahamed Milhan Hayathu Mohamed, who allegedly executed a police officer in order to obtain the officer’s firearm, shot a suspected informant, and scouted a location for a separate terrorist attack.”
The US DOJ press release https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-foreign-nationals-charged-conspiring-provide-material-support-isis also states;
“All three defendants are charged with conspiring to provide, providing, and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Additionally, Naufar and Milhan are charged with aiding and abetting the receipt of military-type training from ISIS.”
Another law enforcement authority the Australian Federal Police (AFP) that has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). The AFP report is most comprehensive. The AFP report also identifies that the attack was mounted by Zahran Hashim and refers to those charged in the FBI/USDOJ report. None of these reports – based on thorough investigations – refers to any other entity as responsible for the Easter Sunday attack except the Islamic State. The law enforcement reports by the foreign governments are based on evidence – interviews with detainees and investigation of their electronics – phones, laptops, and other storage devices. Unlike the conspiracy theories propagated by those with personal and political interests, the foreign government reports are not based on rumour, conjecture or imagination.
The foreign law enforcement and intelligence reports that are classified should not be released by the Sri Lankan government. It is because, the Islamic State threat is persistent and the Sri Lankan government should continue to work with their foreign counterparts to protect their country in the years ahead. Unless a foreign government makes its report public, the Sri Lankan government should not release these reports as it will breach the trust between government authorities and agencies. If a government gets into the practice of releasing reports that foreign law enforcement authorities and intelligence service provide, that government will no longer be trusted. It is also unreasonable on the part of any organisation that is interested in the future security of a country to request the release of security sensitive information into the public domain.
Why did the Catholic Bishops Conference request President Wickramasinghe to release to the public classified information on the Easter Sunday attack? Within the Catholic community, like within the Muslim community, there are brilliant national security officers. If they were consulted, they would give the same advice. The founder father of the Sri Lanka security and intelligence community was Zerney Wijesuriya, a former Director of the National Intelligence Bureau, today’s State Intelligence Service. If Zerney Wijesuriya, a devout Catholic was asked, he would have given the similar advice – “do not ask government to release classified information that will compromise future national security.”
(A specialist in national security, Prof Rohan Gunaratna is author of “Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Massacre – Lessons for the International Community”.)
