All posts tagged: exspy

Sri Lanka arrests ex-spy chief for ‘abetting’ 2019 Easter bombings

Sri Lanka arrests ex-spy chief for ‘abetting’ 2019 Easter bombings

Sri Lanka’s criminal investigators arrested the country’s former intelligence chief on Wednesday in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners. Police said retired Major General Suresh Sallay was taken into custody at dawn in a suburb of the capital, Colombo in the most high-profile arrest in the long-running investigation. “He was arrested for conspiracy and aiding and abetting the Easter Sunday attacks,” an investigating officer told AFP. “He has been in touch with people involved in the attacks, even recently.” The coordinated bombings targeted three upmarket hotels in the capital, two Roman Catholic churches, and an evangelical Protestant church outside Colombo. The attacks were blamed on a homegrown jihadist group. The Catholic Church, which has spearheaded a campaign demanding justice for all victims of the brutal bombings, welcomed the arrest as a sign the investigation was continuing. “What we need is the truth behind the Easter attacks. We want to see justice for all the victims,” Church spokesman Father Cyril Gamini Fernando told AFP. The Church had previous …

French ex-spy chief handed suspended jail sentence in attempted extortion case

French ex-spy chief handed suspended jail sentence in attempted extortion case

French diplomat and former head of the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) Bernard Bajolet arrives on the opening day of his trial for complicity in attempted extortion at the court of Bobigny, in the northeastern suburbs of Paris on November 6, 2025. ALAIN JOCARD / AFP A former head of France’s foreign intelligence agency was handed a one-year suspended jail sentence Thursday, January 8, for attempted extortion worth millions of euros. Bernard Bajolet, who led France’s Directorate General for External Security (DGSE) from 2013 to 2017, was found to have orchestrated an attempt to coerce €15 million ($17.5 million) out of a businessman embroiled in a financial dispute with the service. His conviction brings to a close a 10-year-long investigation full of legal twists and turns, with the trial prompting scrutiny into the workings of the entire foreign intelligence service the 76-year-old once commanded. On March 12, 2016, French-Swiss dual national Alain Dumenil, who was involved in financial disputes with the DGSE worth millions of euros, was stopped by border police at Paris’s biggest airport …