The Truth Behind the Transfer: What Ali Sabry Got Wrong About Shani Abeysekara and the Easter Sunday Investigation
The 2019 Easter Sunday bombings remain an open wound in Sri Lanka’s collective memory. Over 250 people lost their lives in a coordinated terrorist attack that shocked the nation. Yet, for many Sri Lankans, the pain is compounded by a lingering question: was justice deliberately obstructed? At the heart of this controversy lies the removal of former CID Director Shani Abeysekara by the newly elected Gotabaya Rajapaksa government in November 2019. Recently, former Foreign Minister Ali Sabry made statements attempting to justify this decision. However, a closer examination, including rebuttals from journalists like Tarindu Jayawardhana, reveals significant factual inaccuracies in Sabry’s account. This article dissects what Sabry said wrongly and why the timeline of events matters profoundly in the quest for truth.
The Context: A Nation Demands Answers
The Easter Sunday attacks on April 21, 2019, were a catastrophic intelligence failure. Nine suicide bombers struck three churches and three luxury hotels, leaving the country in mourning. In the aftermath, then-CID Director Shani Abeysekara was tasked with leading the investigation. He was widely regarded as one of the most competent and experienced detectives in the Sri Lanka Police, having previously led high-profile cases.
However, less than two weeks into his presidency, Gotabaya Rajapaksa made a decisive move. On November 21, 2019, just three days after assuming office, the new administration ordered Abeysekara’s transfer from the CID. This was not a routine administrative shuffle. It was the removal of the lead investigator from the most important criminal investigation in the country’s modern history. The decision was immediate, sweeping, and sent a clear signal that the new government intended to take control of the narrative surrounding the attacks.
What Ali Sabry Claimed
In public statements, Ali Sabry, then a key legal advisor and later Foreign Minister of the Rajapaksa government, sought to explain why Abeysekara was removed. Sabry suggested that the removal was justified because the investigations had become politicized. He pointed to a controversial voice recording that allegedly captured Abeysekara conspiring with a politician to influence a High Court case. Sabry implied that this recording demonstrated Abeysekara’s lack of impartiality and made his continued involvement in the Easter Sunday investigation untenable.
On the surface, this seemed like a plausible defense. If a senior police officer was caught engaging in political machinations, removing him would be appropriate. But there is a critical problem with this explanation: the timing simply does not add up.
The Critical Factual Error: A Retroactive Justification
The voice recording that Sabry and others referenced did not surface until January 2020, nearly two months after Abeysekara had already been transferred. This is not a minor detail; it is the cornerstone of the entire justification. Since the recording was not in the public domain, nor apparently known to the government, at the time of Abeysekara’s removal on November 21, it could not have been the reason for the decision.
This is precisely the point that journalist Tarindu Jayawardhana and other investigative reporters have highlighted. By using a recording that emerged later to retroactively justify an earlier action, Sabry and the Rajapaksa administration engaged in a clear misrepresentation of facts. The government effectively created a narrative after the fact to cover what was, in reality, a pre-planned decision to sideline the lead investigator.
The Real Reason: A Systematic Dismantling of the Investigation
If the voice recording was not the reason, then what was? The evidence points to a deliberate, systematic effort to obstruct the Easter Sunday investigation from the very beginning of the Rajapaksa presidency.
First, the removal of Abeysekara was not an isolated incident. Within days of taking office, the government also transferred or sidelined several other police officers and intelligence officials who were involved in the Easter Sunday probe. This coordinated effort to replace key investigative personnel indicated a strategic move to control the direction and scope of the inquiry. It was not about one officer’s misconduct; it was about dismantling a team that had been gathering evidence that might have been politically inconvenient.
Second, there was a clear pattern of obstructing justice. In the years that followed, the investigation was effectively stalled. Witnesses were not pursued, crucial leads were not followed, and the full truth about the attacks and the intelligence failures that preceded them remained hidden. The Rajapaksa government consistently resisted calls for an independent, international investigation, preferring to keep the matter under its own control.
Why the Timeline Matters
The distinction between November 2019 and January 2020 is not merely academic. It is the difference between legitimate administrative action and a cover-up. If the government had acted based on the voice recording, the removal would have been defensible. But because the recording came later, the removal must be seen as what it appears to be: an attempt to obstruct justice from day one.
This matters for three reasons:
First, it undermines the credibility of the government’s entire handling of the Easter Sunday investigation. If the leadership was willing to misrepresent the reason for removing a senior officer, what else might they have misrepresented?
Second, it exposes a pattern of behavior. The Rajapaksa government consistently placed political loyalty above the pursuit of truth. Officers who were willing to follow the evidence wherever it led were removed, while those who were politically compliant were promoted. This is not justice; this is the politicization of law enforcement.
Third, it has real consequences for accountability. Because the investigation was stifled early on, key perpetrators have not been brought to justice. The recent reopening of the investigation under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s administration, including the arrest of former intelligence chief Suresh Sallay, is a testament to how much truth was buried. The removal of officers like Abeysekara from the original probe is widely seen as a key reason why crucial leads were not pursued and the truth remained hidden for so long.
The Role of Journalists and the Fight for Truth
Journalists like Tarindu Jayawardhana have played a crucial role in keeping the Easter Sunday investigation alive. Jayawardhana has consistently exposed what he alleges are attempts to cover up the truth and has highlighted the wrongful removal of officers like Abeysekara. For his efforts, he has faced legal pressure, including attempts by the police to arrest him for "obstructing" the investigation—a move critics say is an attempt to silence dissent.
The fact that journalists are now being targeted for speaking truth to power underscores how high the stakes are. The Easter Sunday attacks were not just a failure of security; they were a failure of governance. And the subsequent handling of the investigation has been a failure of justice.
The central claim made by Ali Sabry regarding the removal of Shani Abeysekara is factually incorrect. By retroactively justifying the removal with a voice recording that did not exist at the time, Sabry and the Rajapaksa administration engaged in a misleading narrative. The evidence points to a pre-planned and systemic effort to dismantle the independent investigation into the Easter Sunday attacks, with the immediate transfer of the lead investigator being its first and most telling act.
The debate is not just about a single officer, nor is it about politics. It is about whether the pursuit of truth was deliberately compromised to protect the powerful. It is about whether Sri Lanka can truly achieve justice for the victims of the Easter Sunday attacks. As the country continues to grapple with this tragedy, the facts matter. And the facts show that Ali Sabry’s explanation simply does not hold up to scrutiny. The removal of Shani Abeysekara was not about misconduct; it was about obstruction. And the full truth of what happened on April 21, 2019, remains, to this day, an unfinished story.