Some units questioned suspects without a planned investigation: Ex. SIS Director

After receiving the list of 94 suspects who had contacts with Islamic State (IS) organisation via the State Intelligence Service (SIS), some investigation units had sent Police messages to identify those individuals and inquired directly on their contact with ISIS, former SIS Director SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena yesterday informed PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks.

Referring to an example, Jayawardena said that once Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) had directly questioned Abdul Latif Mohammed Jameel, who detonated himself at Tropical Inn, Dehiwala during Easter attacks, about his radicalisation and the connection to ISIS.

"These inquiries had prompted the suspects to hide from the scene. We gave these information to investigation units to conduct a planned investigation and not to inquire the suspects directly," witness said.

Jayawardena also said that the investigation units have to crosscheck certain facts and share that among SIS.

"These investigations should run in a give and take manner and investigators have to tackle a suspect cautiously," witness said.

The witness made this statement based on a list of 94 persons suspected to follow ISIS ideology which shared among former IGP and defence secretary in October 2017. (Yoshitha Perera)