• Former President Maithripala Sirisena and 4 other top officials found guilty.
• Court orders ex-president to pay $273,300 from his personal funds to victims’ family.
• At least 290 people died in attacks on churches and hotels on Easter Sunday in 2019.

The former president of Sri Lanka, Maithripala Sirisena, and four other top government figures were found guilty on Thursday by the country’s Supreme Court of failing to stop the Easter bombings in 2019, which resulted in at least 290 fatalities and hundreds more injuries.

A seven-judge panel found Sirisena culpable for failing to stop the catastrophe despite having reliable intelligence alerting him to the impending attacks.

The court ordered Sirisena to pay $273,300 from his personal funds to family members of the victims. The other officials were ordered to pay a total of $574,000.

The court also ordered that a victims’ fund be established at the Office of Reparation to “investigate the alleged underpayment or nonpayment” of compensation.

It also directed the government to “take appropriate disciplinary action” against former State Intelligence Service Chief Nilantha Jayawardena for his “lapses and failures.”

The decision was rendered more than three years after a number of explosions destroyed Sri Lankan churches and hotels on Easter Sunday.

In three places, several of those devices detonated inside churches during Easter services. In Sri Lanka, Christians make up less than 10% of the population.

After the assaults, the Sri Lankan government quickly acknowledged that it had ignored several intelligence agency warnings, including those from India and the US.

Days after the assaults, Sri Lankan intelligence services declared they thought the bombers had ties to ISIS that were obvious.

The court has yet to provide a decision in the trial of 25 individuals accused of planning the attacks, which was postponed last year.

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