Terrorists behind bombings that killed three children of Scotland’s richest man have been jailed.
Sri Lanka's High Court has given massive jail sentences to 15 men charged with plotting the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed 270 people and injured more than 500.
Three of Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen's four children who were present died in the attack on the Shangri-La hotel, where the family had been holidaying.
Mr Povlsen is Scotland’s largest private landowner with over 220,000 acres and 13 estates, with much of the land owned located in the Highlands.
The 15 men were given prison terms ranging from 200 to 260 years for their roles in plotting, financing, and aiding the 2019 attacks.
A total of nine suicide bombers carried out the coordinated detonations, none of whom survived to stand trial.
The explosions occurred across three different cities in Sri Lanka, hitting three Christian churches and three luxury hotels during the first wave, followed by two smaller secondary blasts later that afternoon.
Most of those killed were Sri Lankans, many of whom were children.
But 45 foreigners were among the 270 people killed, with more than 500 people injured.
The attacks were carried out by a network of Sri Lankan Islamist extremists who had pledged allegiance to the global terrorist network ISIS.
The Povlsen family had gone to Sri Lanka on a beach vacation during their children’s Easter School break, and were staying at the Shangri-La Hotel in the capital city of Colombo.
They were having breakfast together at the hotel’s Table One restaurant on the morning of Easter Sunday when suicide bombers walked into the hotel and detonated their devices.
Three of the Povlsen children - Alma (15), Agnes (12), and Alfred (5) - were killed.
Their eldest daughter, Astrid, survived the blast alongside her parents.
Shortly after the tragedy, the couple placed full-page notices in local Scottish newspapers, including the Northern Times, to thank the public for their support.
The notice was illustrated with the individual initials of the three children they lost alongside an image of three floating feathers falling from the sky.
The Povlsens went on to welcome twin girls less than a year after the tragedy. In a statement released afterwards, they described their newborn daughters as “two little miracles”.
They also welcomed a baby boy on September 29, 2021.
Since the tragedy, the Povlsens have focused heavily on their environmental re-wilding projects in the Highlands, including in Sutherland, dedicating much of their work to the memory of the children they lost.
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