Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court on Wednesday appointed a three-member bench to hear the cases filed against the suspects in connection with the 2019 Easter suicide attack in which over 270 people, including 11 Indians, were killed. Lankan police had filed 23,270 charges against 35 people last month in the case. The charges filed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act include conspiring to murder, aiding and abetting, collecting arms and ammunition, and attempted murder.
Colombo High Court Judge Damith Thotawatte will chair the three-judge bench, while Judges Amal Ranaraja and Navaratne Marasinghe have been appointed as members of the judiciary panel The setting up of the special Trial-at-Bar at the Colombo High Court came following a request from Attorney General Sanjay Rajaratnam to Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya last month. Nine suicide bombers, belonging to local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS, carried out a series of blasts that tore through…
