Sri Lanka's long-unused capital punishment system returned to focus when a special court imposed a death sentence on Pujith Jayasundara, the country's former inspector general of police. The case concerned his conduct before the Easter Sunday bombings of 2019 rather than participation in the attacks themselves.
The decision was issued by a three-judge bench, with the outcome determined by a majority. The judges convicted the 66-year-old former police chief of negligence connected to the deaths of 279 people. Forty-five foreign nationals were among those killed when attackers struck three churches and three hotels on 21 April 2019. More than 500 others were injured.
Central to the proceedings was intelligence received before the coordinated violence. An Indian intelligence agency had warned Sri Lanka on 4 April 2019 that extremists might carry out a suicide attack. Evidence presented to the court showed that officials did not respond in a way that prevented the bombings, which were attributed to a locally based extremist organisation.
The prosecution originally pursued murder charges, arguing that the failures of senior officials represented exceptionally serious criminal conduct. The final conviction, however, was for negligence that led to the 279 deaths. That distinction identifies the basis on which Jayasundara was sentenced: the court found a grave failure of official duty in the face of advance warning.
The July ruling followed an earlier reversal in the case. In 2022, Jayasundara and Hemasiri Fernando, who was defence secretary at the time of the attacks, were acquitted. The state challenged that decision, leading to the proceedings that produced the new judgment against Jayasundara. The supplied account did not report what the appellate process meant for Fernando.
Both former officials had been detained in 2019 and remained in custody for four months before obtaining bail. They later told a parliamentary inquiry that then-president Maithripala Sirisena had not observed the established process for assessing national security warnings. Sirisena also controlled the defence and law-and-order portfolios at the time. Jayasundara and Fernando alleged that he failed to give the threat sufficient attention; those claims were testimony from the two officials.
Jayasundara is entitled to take his case to Sri Lanka's Supreme Court. The sentence also does not mean an execution is expected soon. Although courts continue to issue death penalties, the country has conducted none since 1976 under an unofficial moratorium.
Government figures presented to parliament in February indicated that roughly 800 prisoners were under death sentences. Such punishments are generally reduced to life imprisonment. Against that background, the judgment combines a severe declaration of responsibility with an avenue for further review and a national practice of not carrying out executions.
