Sri Lanka Has No Laws That Enable Us to Arrest Citizens Joining Foreign Terror Outfits Like ISIS, Says PM

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that the government had known that Sri Lankan nationals who had joined the Islamic State had returned to the country, but they could not be arrested as joining a foreign terrorist organisation is not against the law.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Easter terror attacks on three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels that claimed 253 lives but the government has blamed a local Islamist extremist group National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ) for the bombings.

“We knew they went to Syria…But in our country, to go abroad and return or to take part in a foreign armed uprising is not an offence here,” Wickremesinghe told Sky News.