Even though it has been 6 years since the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, there are a number of areas that need to be further investigated to ensure justice is served. Among them, the investigation into Jameel is key.
Abdul Lathif Mohamed Jameel is the one who attempted to detonate the bomb at the Taj Samudra Hotel and then detonated the bomb at the Tropical Inn in Dehiwala. It was revealed at the Presidential Commission on the Easter Attacks that the intelligence agencies have been focusing on Jamil since 2015.
As has been reported, the State Intelligence Service, the Directorate of Military Intelligence and the Terrorism Investigation Division have been investigating/investigating/surveilling Jamil prior to this attack. As has been revealed so far, although the above three institutions/departments investigated Jameel, they failed to obtain prior warnings about this attack or prevent the attack. Based on the facts revealed by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, the Presidential Committee appointed under the chairmanship of Justice Vijith Malalgoda, the Parliamentary Select Committee, and information obtained from other sources, the following facts should be further investigated regarding Jameel.
01. The security manager of the Taj Samudra Hotel testified at the Presidential Commission of Inquiry that it is a common practice to send a list of names of people who checked in to the hotel between 7 and 8 am every day and by midnight the previous day to the State Intelligence Service and the Presidential Security Division. On the evening of April 20, 2019, Jameel arrived and booked a room at the Taj Samudra Hotel. He had forwarded the list of rooms booked by midnight on 20th April 2019 to the relevant departments on the morning of the 21st. Accordingly, it is necessary to investigate whether the State Intelligence Service identified Jameel, a person they were collecting information about, in this list that morning, and if so, what steps were taken in this regard.
02. The hotel’s security manager stated at the Presidential Commission that the National Identity Card numbers of all those who book rooms in the hotel are mandatory to be entered into the hotel’s data system. However, it was later revealed that Jameel’s National Identity Card number was not in the system. It is necessary to investigate whether Jameel’s National Identity Card number was not entered or was it deleted by someone after being entered, if the National Identity Card number was not entered in the first place, was it an oversight or was it done on the advice or under the influence of someone, and if the National Identity Card number was entered in the data system and later removed, who did it and for what reason.
03. It was reported to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry that a suspicious person had arrived at the Taj Samudra Hotel on 17 April 2019 before Jameel arrived at the hotel on 20 April 2019. He was later identified as Infas, who arrived at 1.45 pm. Accordingly, since there has been no proper investigation into whether other suspicious persons had arrived at the hotel before and after this attack, it should be investigated further.
04. Jameel, who booked a room on 20 April 2019 at around 4.17 pm and left the hotel, returned on the morning of 21 April 2019. It was revealed at the Presidential Commission that he had gone to the room in the morning and asked for a new card to open it. No further investigation has been carried out into what happened to the card issued to him in the first instance. Accordingly, this matter also needs to be investigated.
05. On the morning of 21 April 2019, Jameel returned to the Taj Samudra Hotel (due to the bomb not exploding or for some other reason), and the CCTV cameras recorded that Jameel received phone calls between 8.51 and 8.54 am, just before he left the hotel. Since the person who made such calls to Jameel has not been revealed yet, this should be investigated.
06. During the investigations, Fatima Shifana Umarkatha wife of Jameel, had stated that Jameel had sent a voice message to her at 8.30 am on 20 April 2019, stating that he was going to Hijra. It was revealed at the Presidential Commission that the voices of small children could be heard in the voice messages that Umarkatha claimed to have sent. It should be investigated who the children are whose voices are heard in the background of that voice message and at what place and on what date those voice messages were recorded.
07. Jameel’s wife Umerkata has stated during the investigations that the mobile phone number from which the voice message was allegedly sent has been deleted. She has also stated that the voice message did not come from Jameel’s regular phone number. Accordingly, whether this voice message was sent by Jameel himself or a previously recorded voice message was sent by another person, and the number from which it was sent, has not been revealed by the investigations so far, so it should be investigated.
08. The CCTV footage of Jameel leaving the house on 19 April 2019 was examined by officers of the Counter Terrorism and Investigation Division on the evening of 21 April 2019, and the DVR containing the footage was taken away by officers of the Counter Terrorism Division. When it was taken away, the footage had been recorded from March 31, 2019 until the evening of April 21, 2019. It was revealed at the Presidential Commission that only the video portion from 8.00 am on April 19, 2019 to 2.30 pm on April 21, 2019 was missing from the DVR that was taken away. Officials had stated before the Commission that the video footage must have been deleted when the DVR was taken away and the relevant investigations were conducted. Initially, the relevant footage was available, and then it should be investigated as to how only the portion from the day Jameel left the house until the time the TID officers removed the machine was deleted from the entire CCTV footage, and the deleted footage should be restored and based on that footage, an investigation should be conducted into Jameel, the members of Jameel’s household and the people who came to the house during this period.
09. On the evening of 20 April 2019, Jameel, who had gone to the Taj Samudra Hotel and left there, had then gone to a house in Panadura, and although it was revealed that he had left there at around 7 pm and had gone to the Spam Tower on Templers Road, Mount Lavinia at 7.33 pm with two others, no investigation has been conducted into who the two people were. Therefore, investigations should also be conducted in this regard.
10. On 21 April 2019, Jameel, while inside the mosque, was observed by the maulavi of the mosque to have a mobile phone in his hand. However, when he was checked while leaving the mosque, a private security officer named Ameer stated after checking him that he did not have a mobile phone. Therefore, an investigation should be conducted into the reason why the mobile phone he had in his possession was not there when he came out of the mosque and whether anyone had taken the mobile phone he had in his possession and if so, who it was.
11. It should be investigated whether the mobile phone that Jameel had in his possession at the Taj Samudra Hotel and the mobile phone that Jameel had in his possession at the mosque were the same.
12. It was revealed in the Presidential Commission that Jameel had stated that he was waiting in the mosque until someone else arrived. An investigation should be conducted in this regard and it should be investigated until which person he was waiting.
13. It was revealed in the Presidential Commission that shortly after the series of bomb attacks on 21 April 2019, the Director of Army Intelligence had sent a group of Army Intelligence officers to Jameel’s house. Therefore, it was revealed at the Presidential Commission that the private security guard who checked Jameel near the mosque had been called by the intelligence officers who had gone there and informed him to come near a Havelock Buddha statue, and when he went there, the group in question did not come, and the security officer immediately went to the Wellawatte Police Station, suspecting that they were trying to cause trouble. Since no investigation has been conducted in this regard so far, an investigation should be conducted into it.
If there is a real desire to do justice to this barbaric Easter Sunday attack, it is essential to investigate these 13 facts.
Translation of a Sinhala language article published in the thetime.lk
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