FBI must verify claims by asylum seeker Azad Maulana regarding Sri Lanka’s 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, Including Documentary and Forensic Evidence

 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) must undertake an independent review and verification of the statements made by Mohammed Hanzeer alias Azad Maulana concerning the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka on 21 April 2019, which killed 270 people, including 45 foreign nationals and 5 American citizens, and injured more than 500.

 

Azad Maulana publicly alleged, through Channel 4 in August 2023 and later statements made in Geneva, that Maj-Gen (Retd) Suresh Sallay, former Director of Sri Lanka’s State Intelligence Service, orchestrated and coordinated these attacks.

 

He has not produced any documentary, digital, or witness evidence to support these allegations, and refuses to testify before domestic Sri Lankan authorities, limiting the verifiability of his claims. His allegations were made public only in 2023 through a foreign media documentary, 4 years after the attacks and after multiple domestic investigative, judicial, and commission processes had already recorded findings.

 

He specifically claimed that Sallay arranged meetings with the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) leadership, including Zahran Hashim, in February 2018, and that Sallay communicated operational instructions to him on the morning of the attacks.

 

While every person deserves the opportunity to be heard, these allegations appear to materially conflict with the local findings and those contained in the FBI Special Agent Merrilee R. Goodwin affidavit and the U.S. Department of Justice indictment, both of which identified Zahran Hashim and his NTJ/ISIS network as the direct planners and executors of the Easter bombings.

 

Furthermore, the FBI and DOJ findings are based on direct access to forensic evidence, recovered devices, SIM cards, and witness interviews, whereas Maulana’s claims are largely uncorroborated.

 

Maulana himself has declared that he is willing to testify only before an international forum, He is currently seeking asylum in Switzerland.

 

Azad Maulana has already submitted a five-day evidentiary interview before a non-judicial UN evidence-preservation mechanism that lacks prosecutorial authority, this gives even greater justification for the FBI — which possesses actual criminal investigative expertise and forensic jurisdiction linked to the murder of 5 U.S. citizens — to independently test those same claims from Azad Maulana. The FBI is ideally placed to question him and test the credibility of his allegations against the evidence already gathered by U.S. investigators.

 

1) Timeline Impossibilities

 

Passport, immigration, and travel records reportedly place Sallay in Malaysia in February 2018 and in New Delhi in April 2019.

 

The FBI must therefore ask Maulana to provide documentary evidence, travel corroboration, communication metadata, or witness confirmation proving:

 

• that he arranged any meeting in Puttalam in February 2018
• that Sallay personally gave him instructions on Easter morning, 21 April 2019

 

Without such evidence, these claims remain unverified assertions.

 

2) Contradiction with FBI & DOJ Findings

 

The FBI affidavit sworn by Special Agent Merrilee R. Goodwin reportedly concluded that Zahran Hashim was the mastermind and operational commander of the Sri Lankan ISIS cell, while the U.S. Department of Justice indictment charged additional NTJ/ISIS associates with providing material support.

 

The FBI must therefore ask Maulana to produce specific evidence implicating Sallay in planning, directing, financing, facilitating, or executing any operational aspect of the Easter attacks.

If his claims materially contradict the FBI’s own terrorism findings, the discrepancy must be resolved transparently.

 

3) Witness Credibility Must Be Tested

 

Maulana was a former TMVP propaganda officer, with no publicly established operational role inside the NTJ network.

 

The FBI must therefore require him to substantiate:

• how he obtained access to NTJ members
• why Zahran Hashimwould trust him
• what direct links existed between him and Sallay
• which portions of his allegations are based on direct personal observation and which are based on statements allegedly made by third parties
• whether he possesses messages, call logs, notes, location records, financial trails, or witness support

 

This is especially important because he has refused to testify before Sri Lankan courts. The FBI should also clarify why these allegations did not surface before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, CID investigations, or earlier judicial processes if they were genuinely based on direct knowledge.

 

4) Channel 4 Must Also Be Questioned

 

Channel 4 aired Maulana’s allegations globally, significantly influencing public perception.

 

It is publicly known that the broadcaster sought Sallay’s response before airing the documentary and that he rejected the allegations as false.

The FBI should therefore obtain:

• all raw interviews
• editorial notes
• source communications
• legal review memos
• fact-checking material
• corroborative evidence used before publication
• timeline verification records
• travel-location corroboration
• independent witness validation

 

The key question is simple:

On what evidentiary basis did Channel 4 decide to broadcast allegations of complicity in mass murder after the principal accused party categorically denied them?

 

5) Victims’ Families Deserve Facts, Not Endless Narratives

The families of the Easter Sunday victims have been subjected to years of competing narratives, political theories, media sensationalism, and bizarre claims.

 

These must now be buried by facts.

 

Given that Mohammed Hanzeer alias Azad Maulana is currently in Switzerland, the FBI may lawfully seek his testimony through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty mechanisms and Swiss law-enforcement authorities under its established international terrorism investigative mandate based on what FBI has already investigated regarding Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday attacks.

 

• telecom data
• recovered SIM cards
• device forensics
• ISIS communications
• witness interviews
• crime-scene evidence
• DOJ prosecution materials

 

Unchecked dissemination of unverified allegations risks:

• misattributing responsibility
• damaging reputations
• distorting the historical record
• undermining media credibility
• compromising the integrity of international justice discourse

 

We trust the FBI will take this request seriously and act with the diligence, neutrality, and professionalism that the victims (both local & foreign) deserve.

 

The families of the Easter Sunday victims, and indeed the people of Sri Lanka as a whole, have for years been forced to endure an endless cycle of competing narratives, political theories, media sensationalism, and bizarre floating claims that resurface annually around the tragedy. These repeated attempts to weaponize the memory of the dead for political ends have only deepened public grief and eroded trust.

 

Today, the people stand increasingly united in their loss of faith and confidence in all those who continue to use Easter Sunday as an annual instrument for political agendas rather than truth and justice.

 

It is precisely for this reason that the people now look to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), with its internationally recognized expertise in terrorism investigations, forensic analysis, and evidentiary verification, to finally bring clarity to these unresolved contradictions.

 

The victims’ families deserve facts.

The nation deserves closure.

And the truth deserves to be separated from narratives that have drifted too far from the evidence.

 

We trust the FBI will take this request seriously and act with the diligence, neutrality, and professionalism that the victims, their families, and the people of Sri Lanka deserve.

 

By independently questioning the central witness whose claims have redirected public understanding of the attacks, the FBI has the opportunity to determine whether those claims are supported by admissible evidence or whether they have merely prolonged confusion and distrust.

 

We are confident that the FBI will provide long-overdue clarity and closure to the victims’ families in Sri Lanka & abroad as well as to the people of Sri Lanka.

 

 

 

Shenali D Waduge