The Colombo trial-at-bar sentenced Pujith Jayasundara, the former Inspector General of Police, to death after finding him guilty on several charges pertaining to the Easter Sunday attacks. The court found him guilty of criminal dereliction of duty for failing to take action to prevent the attacks despite receiving prior intelligence warnings.
The verdict was delivered by a three-judge bench comprising judges Priyantha Liyanage, Viraj Weerasooriya, and Tilakaratne Bandara.
The attorney-general had separately indicted Hemasiri Fernando, the former defence secretary, and Jayasundara before a different trial-at-bar on the charges.
On February 18th, 2022, that trial-at-bar acquitted both the accused without calling for their defence after the prosecution gave its evidence.
The attorney-general subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court, seeking to have that acquittal set aside.
Allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court ruled that the accused should have been called upon to present their defence before any verdict was delivered and ordered that the cases be re-tried.
It was this re-trial that delivered its judgment today, sentencing Jayasundara to death.
A previous version of this article stated that the Supreme Court sentenced Jayasundara. This has now been corrected to show the Colombo high court sentenced him.
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