A Permanent High Court Trial-at-Bar has convicted 15 defendants and acquitted nine others in the main prosecution connected to Sri Lanka's 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
The judgment was delivered on September 22 by a three-judge bench comprising High Court Judges Navaratne Marasinghe, Ramanathan Kannan and Sujeewa Nissanka.
The Attorney General had filed 23,270 charges against 24 defendants, including allegations of conspiracy and aiding and abetting the attacks.
The nine defendants who were acquitted were ordered to be released.
Property confiscation ordered
The court also ordered the movable and immovable property belonging to the 15 convicted defendants to be confiscated by the State.
The verdict represents a major judicial outcome in one of the principal criminal prosecutions arising from the Easter Sunday attacks.
What the case concerns
The prosecution concerned defendants accused of involvement in the conspiracy surrounding the attacks and of providing assistance or support.
The 15 people convicted in this case should not be described as the suicide bombers who carried out the attacks.
The coordinated attacks on churches and hotels on Easter Sunday in April 2019 killed more than 260 people and injured hundreds.
Sentence reports conflict
Published reports agree that lengthy terms of rigorous imprisonment were imposed on the convicted defendants, but current reports conflict on the exact defendant-by-defendant sentences.
One report states that each of the 15 received 220 years of rigorous imprisonment.
Another detailed court report states that the sentences differed between defendants and ranged from 200 to 260 years.
Because the exact sentencing breakdown has not yet been reconciled against the authoritative written judgment or court record, Sineth News is not presenting either version as the definitive sentence schedule in this article.
The article should be updated when the authoritative sentencing record becomes available.