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In the devastated church of St. Anthony's Shrine in Kochchikade, Colombo, April 21, 2019. ISHARA S. KODIKARA / AFP

In Sri Lanka, a parliamentary report on the attacks that left 269 dead on April 21, overwhelmed President Sirisena and the country's leading intelligence agency.

President Maithripala Sirisena " has actively undermined the systems of government, " accuses the parliamentary report on the 2019 jihadist attacks that killed 269 people. A multi-party commission was investigating the failures of the Sri Lankan security apparatus ahead of the 21 April attacks, on which Sri Lanka had received very specific advance information.

Kamikazes from a local jihadist organization provoked carnage on Easter Sunday by detonating themselves in luxury hotels and Christian churches in the midst of Mass. The Islamic State jihadist group has claimed responsibility for these attacks .

According to the report, the State Intelligence Service, the main Sri Lankan intelligence agency working directly under President Sirisena's authority, had more than two weeks to go before the attacks on information about a possible attack, transmitted by India. But they have not been shared with the services concerned.

Power struggle

Moreover, a year before the attacks, the agency had become the only one to investigate the future brain of the attacks, Mohamed Zahran, after having made sure that other services stop their investigations. The report also notes that Maithripala Sirisena had excluded from crucial security advice the chief of police, deemed close to the prime minister, his rival. In fact, the Easter attacks occurred in a context of power struggle between the two men, which disrupts the proper functioning of the state.

" The president has failed many times to show leadership, " says the report. Pretending the lack of seats on flights from Singapore where he was, Maithripala Sirisena had returned to Sri Lanka the day after the attacks. On the contrary, the report indicates that places were still available. These revelations come at three weeks of elections to which neither the President nor the Prime Minister, highly contested, will participate.