The Vatican has appointed 167 people to be “heroes of faith” in the Easter bombing in Sri Lanka in 2019.
The country’s cardinal Malcolm Ranjith made the announcement at an event to mark the sixth anniversary of the suicide attack targeting the Catholic Church and a five-star hotel during Easter Sunday Mass, killing 269 people.
The Vatican recognized people are Catholics faithfully attending the attacked church.
This kind of violence has never been seen since the end of the civil war in 2009. However, since then, the investigation into the attack has been controversial.
Muslim extremists claim the attack, but the victims’ families and the island’s minority Christian community have been criticized by the public for dragging their feet to act on those suspected of bomb attacks.
As the information emerged, the anger grew, and the security officer or the government at the time did not take any intelligence warnings about the attack. The country’s Supreme Court has since directed then President Maithripala Sirisena to pay compensation to victims of the bombing to “ignor viable intelligence”, which could prevent the attack.
The trial of 25 people accused of planning the attack was held. But attorneys involved in the case warned that 23,000 people were charged with litigating the people, warning that the huge charges and a stunning list of witnesses could mean the trial has been delayed for years.
The Catholic community, led by Cardinal Ranjith, repeatedly claimed that the then government had covered up the investigation of “protecting the brain behind the attack.”
Channel 4’s 2023 investigation raised questions about the link between the government, the military and the organization, and also caused public outrage. It claims to allow attacks to take political power.
The presidential election held shortly after the attacks brought Gotabaya Rajapaksa to power after campaigning on a national security platform.
He issued a statement in parliament denying all charges filed in the documentary.
The issue gained a new currency when Sri Lanka elected a new president and parliament in 2024. After that, the newly elected government claimed that the attacks were attacks by “certain groups” at the time to seize political power.
They also reopened the investigation into the attacks, including a report on the formal handing over by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry to the country’s Central Bureau of Investigation for further investigation.
“As the Government, we reaffirm our commitment to ensuring justice. Continuous efforts to investigate attacks and uncover all truths without hindering or delaying are still top priority. Responsibility, transparency and true justice are essential to respect the memory of victims and restore public trust,” Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya said in a statement: “The memory of victims and restore public trust is essential.
