By Saman Indrajith in The Island, Sept 23, 2023
Opposition and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa told Parliament yesterday that irrefutable evidence had emerged, linking the Zahran group, which carried out the Easter Sunday terror attacks, to the Army intelligence.
Participating in the debate on the Channel 4 exposure on the Easter Sunday terror attacks, Premadasa said that there were instances that pointed to links between the Army intelligence and the Zahran group. Firstly, there was an IP address of an intelligence officer who used his girlfriend’s mobile phone to contact members of the Zahran group, information provided by the FBI, which was not further investigated.
Secondly, a terrorist, who was to attack Hotel Taj has gone away after receiving a phone call and met an intelligence officer in Dehiwala. Attempts by the Wellawatte police to conduct an investigation were thwarted by intelligence units. Thirdly, when two policemen were assassinated in Vaunathivu, Army intelligence repeatedly claimed that the LTTE was responsible and even placed an LTTE suicide jacket to mislead CID.
Fourthly, when the police apprehended Sadeeq and Haq, who vandalised the Buddha statues in Mawanella and brought them to Colombo for questioning, Army intelligence officers intercepted them twice. Those instances strongly suggested a connection between Army intelligence and the Zahran group.
CID investigators had found that a person known as Sonic had used a sim card to speak to Zahran. The investigators traced the owner of the sim card, a woman police officer attached to the City Traffic Police. When questioned she told the investigators that she bought the sim card but later had given it to her boyfriend an SI by the name of Bandara attached to the State Intelligence Service. He is now IP Bandara. It was he who asked the suspect known as Podi Zahran to persuade ISIS to claim responsibility for the terror attacks. All the evidence led to the fact that Army intelligence had direct links with the Zahran Group who carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, Premadasa said.
https://island.lk/sajith-tells-parliament-about-undeniable-evidence-linking-zahran-group-to-army-intelligence/
