Wijewardene advanced his theory at a meeting with the Sri Lankan parliament on Tuesday without revealing any information that could establish a link between the…
Wijewardene advanced his theory at a meeting with the Sri Lankan parliament on Tuesday without revealing any information that could establish a link between the Easter bombings and Christchurch. Terrorism experts immediately expressed skepticism that the sophisticated weapons and tactics employed in the Sri Lanka attacks could have been assembled in the month that has elapsed since the Christchurch atrocity.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern disputed the notion of retaliation for Christchurch at a press conference on Wednesday.
“We haven’t received anything officially nor have we received any intelligence reports that corroborate what has been said in Sri Lanka,” said Ardern.
“Sri Lanka will be in the very early stages of its investigations. So we are simply stepping back and allowing them to undertake those, but we have nothing at this stage to corroborate what is being said,” she elaborated.
A spokeswoman for Ardern’s office indicated the prime minister was aware of Wijewardene’s remarks and reiterated that New Zealand wishes to give the Sri Lankans time to complete their investigation, but also wants to make clear that it has “not yet seen any intelligence upon which such an assessment” of retaliation for Christchurch might be based.
Wijewardene doubled down on his assertions Wednesday, explaining that the terrorist cells involved in Easter bombings had been planning an attack for some time, but were motivated to carry out their plan by a desire to retaliate for the Christchurch shooting.
The most important bit of evidence advanced for this theory is a memo leaked from the Sri Lankan police that was written ten days before the attack, in which the police noted one member of an organization believed to be involved in the bombings began “regularly updating [social media] accounts with hate speech against non-Muslims since the March 15,2019, attacks on Muslim mosques by a Christian individual in New Zealand.
