Sri Lanka jails 15 for up to 260 years over Easter Sunday church bombings

The Archdiocese of Colombo welcomed the ruling but said those convicted are only part of the case, as a separate probe into alleged state links continues.

Sri Lanka’s High Court has sentenced 15 men to prison terms of 200 to 260 years for their roles in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings. The convictions are the first directly tied to the attacks on three churches and three hotels that killed 279 people.

A three-judge bench in Colombo delivered the verdict Sept. 22 after a nearly five-year trial involving 23,270 charges, LiCAS.news reported. Fourteen defendants were convicted on all counts, including murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and possession of firearms and explosives under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Nine were acquitted, while a 15th was convicted on some counts. The court also ordered the confiscation of the convicts’ property.

According to the sentencing list published by Sri Lanka Mirror, one defendant received 260 years, four received 240 years, five received 220 years, and five received 200 years. Prosecutors identified Mohamed Naufar, an Islamist preacher, as the ringleader who supported the suicide bombers, and he received 220 years.

The dead included 45 foreign nationals, among them five U.S. citizens, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Father Jude Krishantha Fernando, director of mass communications for the Archdiocese of Colombo, welcomed the ruling but said those convicted “represented only one part of the case,” Newswire reported. He also called for scrutiny of whether intelligence and security officials had enough information to prevent the attacks.

“Finally, we have justice,” Fernando told Agence France-Presse. “It has taken a long time to get to this point.”

Church presses for a full accounting

For years, the Church has pressed to identify those who ordered the attacks. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo called the 2020 release of several suspects “sad and unfortunate,” and Pope Francis urged Sri Lankan authorities in 2022 to clarify “definitively who was responsible.”

In February 2026, police arrested former intelligence chief Suresh Sallay, and the archdiocese asked that the investigation proceed “unhindered from any quarters.” Sallay denies the allegations.

In July, former police chief Pujith Jayasundara and former defense secretary Hemasiri Fernando were sentenced to death for failing to act on intelligence warnings. In August, Ranjith said the Church “cannot support capital punishment because it violates human dignity,” Radio Veritas Asia reported.

In 2025, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints added the 167 Catholics killed in the bombings to its list of “Witnesses of Faith.”