Fifteen men have been convicted for their role in the deadly 2019 Easter Sunday bomb massacre in Sri Lanka, which killed 270 people.
More than 500 were injured in the co-ordinated attacks on two Catholic churches, a Protestant church and three luxury tourist hotels, which investigators said were perpetrated by Islamist extremists.
Fourteen men were found guilty of all charges by the three-judge bench of the High Court on Tuesday, with a fifteenth defendant convicted on only some of the charges. Nine men were acquitted and one had died in custody before the conclusion of the case.
The court was adjourned before sentencing, according to the BBC.
Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic Church has welcomed the decision. Fr Jude Fernando, priest of St. Anthony’s in Colombo, which was targeted, told AFP: “Finally, we have justice… It has taken a long time to get to this point.”
A record 23,270 charges were filed against the suspects in 2021 for assisting the suicide bombers, including allegations of murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possessing firearms.
Most of those killed were Sri Lankans, many of them children, although eight Britons were among the 45 foreigners to have died.
Christians in the country have continued to seek justice and answers over the past seven years.
A 2023 ruling ordered former president Maithripala Sirisena to pay millions of pounds in compensation to victims, having been found culpable for national security failures which enabled the attacks.
Two former officials were sentenced to death last month for their failures, although these sentences are usually commuted to life in prison in Sri Lanka.