Sri Lankan government unaware of move to arrest Gotabaya Rajapaksa: Minister Nalin Jayathissa

Gotabaya Rajapaksa. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A Minister said on Wednesday (February 5, 2025) that the Sri Lankan government is unaware of any move to arrest former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the Easter Sunday bombings case.

Nalin Jayathissa, the Minister of Health and Mass Media, said this in response to a statement by Opposition politician Udaya Gammanpila who accused the government of plotting to arrest Mr. Rajapaksa to meet its motive to blame the state intelligence services for the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 270 people, including Indians.

Mr. Gammanpila, a former Minister, said the government planned to arrest Mr. Rajapaksa and Suresh Sallay, the then chief of state intelligence.

“Someone must have told Gammanpila. He might be saying it because he knows. But the government will be guided by the investigators,” Mr. Jayathissa said.

The National People’s Power (NPP) government has started a fresh probe into the Easter Sunday attacks as the coalition before coming to power pledged to revive high-profile cases of rights abuses before 2015.

Mr. Jayathissa also told reporters the attorney general’s recent action to free three key suspects from the murder investigation of Lasantha Wickrematunga, the editor of the Sunday Leader in 2009, would be closely studied by the government.

It was alleged the attorney general on January 27 advised the Criminal Investigation Department of Sri Lankan Police to inform the magistrate’s court that three key suspects were no longer held responsible for the murder. The purported decision has angered rights groups and urged the NPP government to bring Wickrematunga’s murderers to justice.