EXCLUSIVE: Six months since the church and hotel bombings that killed 259, Sri Lanka’s Catholic cardinal makes a potentially explosive claim about what lay behind them. Not simply, he says, an extremist outburst. He alleges a plot to ‘destabilise’ the country – and decries a government whitewash.

25 October 2019 By Paul Martin

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the most senior Catholic in Sri Lanka, has told correspondent.world he suspects the Easter bombings six months ago were “not just an attack of some fanatics”. He believes they constituted a deliberate plot to destabilise his country.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith (centre) attends a candlelight vigil on Sunday in memory of bombing victims in Colombo. Photo: AFP
Exclusive interview with the Cardinal inside the Archbishop’s headquarters in Colombo.