In a majority resolution, a three-judge bench dominated that former police chief Pujith Jayasundara and former defence ministry secretary Hemasiri Fernando failed of their duties to cease the lethal assaults, blamed on a homegrown Islamist extremist group.
Jayasundara, 66, and Fernando, 76, can attraction in opposition to the sentence within the Supreme Court docket, however have been remanded to judicial custody till granted bail.
Sri Lanka has not carried out the demise sentence since 1976, sustaining an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment.
There are no less than 800 individuals on demise row, in response to authorities figures shared with parliament in February, with sentences often commuted to life imprisonment.
Friday’s judgement on the particular fast-track courtroom got here after the state appealed in opposition to a 2022 resolution that acquitted the duo.
The courtroom was instructed throughout the proceedings that an Indian intelligence company had alerted Sri Lanka on April 4, 2019 to a attainable suicide assault by Islamist extremists, however authorities didn’t take motion.
