The explosions occurred after 2 pm last Sunday after investigators quickly established a link between the bombers and the Mahawila Udyana Road, Dematagoda, the family home registered under the name, Mohammed Yusuf Ibrahim, a wealthy spice trader in Pettah. Ibrahim is also the President of the Pettah Traders’ Association and a well-known trader in the city. His sons, Inshaff and Ilham have been identified by the CID as suicide bombers who detonated themselves at separate five-star hotels on Easter Sunday.
Ilham Ibrahim has been identified as one of the bombers at the Shangri-La where the suspected mastermind of the bombings Mohammed Zaharan also detonated his explosives laden backpack, killing 33 people at the hotel in the middle of its Easter Sunday brunch. Inshaff Ibrahim has been identified as the Cinnamon Grand bomber who claimed 20 lives in that explosion on the same day, just minutes apart.
The Ibrahim family has become a focal point of the investigation, sources familiar with the process told the Sunday Observer, as sleuths piece together the puzzle of financing and training for the terrorists that carried out the Easter Sunday bombings.
The sources say that it was the Shangri-La bomber Ilham Ibrahim that led the CID to the Dematagoda family home. When CCD officials entered the house, while the Special Task Force was still securing the perimeter, a woman believed to be Fathima Ibrahim, wife of Ilham ran up the stairs and detonated a bomb, that instantly killed the three policemen and her three children. Investigators believe Fathima Ibrahim, reportedly a woman in her early 20s, was pregnant at the time of her death. The bomb was detonated on the first floor of the three storey luxury home.
The CID has also confirmed that the second bomber at the Shangri La hotel was Mohammed Zaharan, the radical preacher who preached slaughter of infidels and unleashed violence against minority Muslim sects in the East. The confirmation is subject to DNA test results coming back positive, the Sunday Observer learns. Highly placed sources told the Sunday Observer that while the identities of several bombers had been established by using DNA tests, others had been identified by their families.
The eighth bomber, whose attack on a five-star hotel facing the ocean on Galle Road was foiled, later detonated himself in Dehiwala. That explosion killed two people who were in an adjoining room at the Tropical Inn, a small lodge near the National Zoo.