CNI Chief not received report sent to his office

Although an intelligence report with regard to the use of mobile SIM cards bearing foreign numbers by the suicide bombers to exchange messages had been received to the office of Chief of National Intelligence (CNI) before Easter Sunday terror attacks, the particular report had not been handed over to former CNI Director Sisira Mendis, the PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks was informed yesterday.

Responding to a question posed by a Commissioner, former CNI Director Sisira Mendis said he remembered receiving an intelligence report pertaining to the use of SIM cards from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Nepal to communicate with suicide bombers.

"There was a report regarding the use of foreign SIM cards by suicide bombers but it was not handed over to me," he said.

When the commissioners questioned the witness regarding a solution to prevent issues among security and intelligence institutions, Mr. Mendis said the relevant authorities should form a proper mechanism of intelligence services to develop and share intelligence reports among investigation units.

Mr. Mendis further said that although former State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena had held extensive discussions about Islamic extremism and Zahran's practices at the meetings, the findings of the SIS with regard to this issue were limited.

When the Commissioners questioned about using a person who had been issued an arrest warrant as an informant of a particular investigation unit, the witness said that the investigation units could not use an informant who was supposed to be arrested, without executing the particular arrest warrant.

Earlier it was revealed to the Commission, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had used informant Army Mohideen, a strong member of the National Thowheed Jamaat (NTJ) against whom there was an arrest warrant..

Mr. Mendis also said that he had not received any written document with regard to arrest warrants obtained by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) on Zahran Hashim and his associates. (Yoshitha Perera)