The only person to lead both Sri Lankan spy agencies, Suresh Sallay, was arrested by the CID on Wednesday morning at Peliyagoda.
The retired major general was en route to his office at The Pathfinder Foundation, a think tank, and had stopped for some breakfast kande when he was apprehended, a source familiar with the investigation told The Examiner. He was then taken to his house in Nugegoda, which was searched.
Sallay is currently held at the CID headquarters in Fort — inside the same cells Easter bombing suspects were held in 2019, added the source. The police obtained witness statements implicating Sallay in the bombings, including from former officials.
He is currently held on a 72-hour detention order under the PTA, the anti-terror law. According to the police, the order would likely be extended. His lawyer, Asith Siriwardene, says he has not been able to meet his client yet.
Sallay’s arrest is based on “clear evidence,” said police spokesman F U Wootler at a press conference. "He has been in touch with people involved in the attacks, even recently,” investigators told AFP, a press agency.
He is also the state’s first witness in the ongoing trial-at-bar against 24 accused in the bombings.
Investigations
Sallay has long been accused of conspiring in the Easter bombings. A Channel 4 documentary claimed Suresh Sallay played a key role in organising the attacks on Easter Sunday 2019 to destabilise the country and pave the way for the Rajapaksa’s return to power. The police started investigating the documentary’s allegations in November 2024.
The Examiner learns that investigators plan to take statements from Hanzeer Azad Maulana, the whistleblower named in the documentary. He’s currently in exile, but he may return to the island to give evidence.
“This is the first instance in Sri Lanka’s history that a senior military officer has been taken into custody under the PTA,” said Rohan Gunaratna, a security studies professor who has known Sallay for nearly forty years.
He claims that the CID failed to disclose evidence for the detention. Gunaratne argues that Sallay is innocent pointing to the fact that no international investigations, including in the US and and Australia, implicate him.
When the current government was elected, the CID resumed investigations that weren’t progressing under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and President Ranil Wickremesinghe, said Cyril Gamini, the Catholic Church’s spokesman.
“There was no investigation at all, but the current government has made it a priority,” he added.
