Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Archdiocese of Colombo
Colombo (Fides News Agency) – “It is a wound that is slowly healing. The healing process is underway. With this verdict, we can say that we are moving in the direction of truth and justice, since those who carried out the massacre and some of its co-organizers have been identified. There is still a second part to be established, to understand which individuals facilitated the massacre to gain political advantage and seize power”: this is the comment given to Fides News Agency by Fr. Jude Chrysantha Fernando, a priest from Colombo and Director of the Communications and Media Office of the Archdiocese of Colombo, following yesterday’s verdict by the High Court of Sri Lanka, which convicted 15 of the 24 defendants in the trial over the 21 April 2019 massacres (see Fides, 22/9/2025). At the time, suicide bombers targeted three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 279 people, including 45 foreigners.
The 15 defendants were sentenced to terms ranging from 200 to 260 years in prison. The court also ordered the confiscation of their assets and other property. They were the perpetrators who carried out the massacre: “They are people of Muslim faith who used their faith as an ideology to kill,” Fr Fernando noted. Nine other defendants were acquitted “for lack of sufficient evidence”, the priest pointed out. He was present in court yesterday for the reading of the verdict.
“However,” he continued, “this is a first step toward achieving full truth and justice, but the road ahead is still long.” Among those convicted is the head of the State Intelligence Service, a key figure who “should reveal those who commissioned the attacks and the links with politics, but has so far failed to do so, in order to establish the responsibility of those who allowed or facilitated the attacks in order to seize power,” Fr Fernando explained. The authorities are conducting a separate investigation into alleged links between elements of the state apparatus and those responsible for the attacks.
Fr Chrysantha Fernando spoke about the victims’ families: “Some of them were outside the court, and in some way they have obtained justice because they learned that those who killed their children or relatives will be punished. It should be said that the families have already received compensation from the State as well as assistance from the Catholic Church. Some of those who lost their wives or husbands have rebuilt their lives by remarrying. It is a sign that life goes on. We must never lose hope, which comes to us from God,” he said.
In some churches and communities in Colombo, commemorations were held to honor and remember the victims of the Easter attacks, in an atmosphere of profound emotion.
Among them were 167 Catholic faithful killed in St Anthony’s Church in Colombo and St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo while attending Easter Mass. They have been included in the Catalogue of “Witnesses of Faith” of the 21st century, compiled by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints and presented during the 2025 Jubilee Year by the Commission for new martyrs and witnesses of the faith.
(PA) (Fides News Agency, 23/9/2026)
