Two former Sri Lanka officials sentenced to death for negligence in deadly Easter bombings

A Sri Lankan court on Friday sentenced a former police chief and a former top Defence Ministry official to death after finding them guilty of criminal negligence that allowed Islamic State-inspired bomb attacks on Easter Sunday in 2019, which killed more than 260 people.

Jayasundara, 66, and Fernando, 76, can appeal against the sentence in the Supreme Court, but have been remanded to judicial custody until granted bail.

A Sri Lanka court sentenced former police chief Pujith Jayasundara to death on Friday for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which killed 279 people including 45 foreigners. In a majority decision, a three-judge bench ruled that the former inspector general had failed in his duties to stop the deadly a