Police brings five terror suspects back to Sri Lanka

Five terror suspects who were arrested in Dubai in connection with the April 21 Easter Sunday suicide attacks, were brought back to Sri Lanka from Saudi Arabia on Friday, police said.

Police declined to provide details of the arrests beyond saying the five were picked up in a Middle Eastern country and were sent back, in the custody of Sri Lankan police, from the Saudi city of Jeddah.

The police said that a special Criminal Investigation Department (CID) team had left for Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to bring back the suspects.

The suspects were detained in Dubai following the attacks across the island nation, majority in capital Colombo, that claimed the lives of over 250 people.

The coordinated Islamist militant suicide bomb attacks on hotels and churches sent shockwaves through the Indian Ocean island state that had enjoyed relative peace since a civil war ended a decade ago.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks that authorities said were carried out by two little-known domestic groups - the National Thawheedh Jamaath (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim.

Police declined to give information about the nature of the five suspects’ roles in the attacks but said one of them, identified as Mohamed Milhan, was a senior member of the NTJ.

Besides being a suspect in the April 21 attacks, initial police investigations have revealed that Mohamed Milhan, alias Abu Seelan, was responsible for the killing of two police constables at a checkpoint in Vavunathivu, Batticaloa on November 30, 2018.

Authorities have arrested more than 2,000 people in connection with the attacks. While courts have released most of them on bail, 634 remain in detention.

Authorities say the threat of more attacks has been contained and the security services have dismantled most of the network linked to the bombings.