Sri Lanka to probe allegation of intelligence complicity in 2019 bombings

Sri Lanka’s government will appoint a parliamentary committee to investigate allegations made in a British television report that Sri Lankan intelligence had complicity in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 269 people.

Labour Minister Manusha Nanayakkara told the parliament on Tuesday that details on the investigation will be announced soon.

A man interviewed in the Channel 4 videos released on Tuesday said he arranged a meeting between a local ISIL (ISIS)-inspired group and a top state intelligence official to hatch a plot to create insecurity in Sri Lanka and enable Gotabaya Rajapaksa to win the presidential election later that year.

Azad Maulana was a spokesman for a breakaway group of the Tamil Tiger rebels that later became a pro-state armed group and helped the government defeat the rebels and win Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war in 2009.

Read more: Al Jazeera