COLOMBO: Sri Lanka is set to conclude on Tuesday the trial of 24 men accused of plotting the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, the deadliest attack against civilians in the island\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Suicide bombers struck three luxury hotels and three churches on April 21, 2019, killing 279 people including 45 foreigners. Investigators blame the attack on a homegrown Islamist extremist group.<\/p>\n
One of 25 men indicted over alleged involvement in the attack \u2014 all from Sri Lanka\u2019s Muslim minority \u2014 has died in custody, leaving 24 defendants to stand trial.<\/p>\n
The hearing is due to open at 9:30 am (0400 GMT) at the High Court of Colombo.<\/p>\n
Police said extraordinary security measures would be in place around the court complex ahead of the verdict, the first time anyone is sentenced over direct involvement in the attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering the interest in this case, we are making special security arrangements,\u201d police said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The trial has already made legal history in Sri Lanka, with prosecutors filing 23,270 charges, the highest number ever brought in a single case.<\/p>\n
The charges include murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possessing firearms and explosives under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have identified Mohamed Naufar as the alleged ringleader who provided support to the eight-member suicide squad that carried out the coordinated bombings.<\/p>\n
All defendants have denied involvement.<\/p>\n
Local media said that if convicted, some of them could face the death penalty, even though Sri Lanka has not carried out an execution since 1976 and capital punishment is typically commuted to life imprisonment.<\/p>\n
The prospect of capital punishment gained prominence in July when two security officials were sentenced to death in a separate case for failing to prevent the attacks despite intelligence warnings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka is set to conclude on Tuesday the trial of 24 men accused of plotting the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, the deadliest attack against civilians in the island\u2019s history. Suicide bombers struck three luxury hotels and three churches on April 21, 2019, killing 279 people including 45 foreigners. Investigators blame the attack on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103305,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103290\/revisions\/103305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}