“I was not given an opportunity to join the Security Council meetings or the Intelligence coordination meetings after October 26th,” he said adding that he did not deem it fit to question the move given the status quo at the time.The State Minister agreed that there was a lapse in communications and that the intelligence services were ‘operating in autonomy of their own’. “There was a lot of instability within the Ministry of Defence. There had been five defence secretaries since 2015.”
When asked about his statement that he had made with reference to the Easter attack as being a retaliatory attack for the shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Minister said that he made those statements based on information provided to him by the Criminal Investigation Department.
“I was told by the CID that one of the bombers, Insaf who bombed the Cinnamon Grand Hotel had made a phone call prior to the attack. In it he tells he says that Muslims around the world were being adversely affected. He cited Syria, Rohingya and also referred to the attacks on Muslims at mosques in Christchurch.” he said. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern however said that her government were not aware of any intelligence suggesting that the devastating attack on Easter Sunday was in retaliation for the deadly shooting on mosques in Christchurch.
He however said that if the relevant police officers had performed their correct duties, the attack on April 21st could have been prevented. “If the Officer-in-charge of Kattankudy had done his duty, we could have prevented this attack, the same goes for the police officers at Mawanella,” he said.