Published 19:53 IST, April 24th 2019
WATCH: Sri Lankan media accesses another hotel's CCTV footage, capturing alleged suicide bomber queuing up at Shangri-La's buffet table
After retreiving the first CCTV footage of an alleged suicide bomber walking into the St. Sebastian Church, another footage has been extracted from the Shangri-La Hotel, a target among the eight serial blasts in Sri Lanka's Colombo.
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After retreiving the first CCTV footage of an alleged suicide bomber walking into the St. Sebastian Church, another footage has been extracted from the Shangri-La Hotel, a target among the eight serial blasts in Sri Lanka's Colombo.
The CCTV footage shows two men in caps, walking through the hotel lobby and getting into the elevator. Further, the visuals show the suspects getting out on the 13th floor.
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Visuals also capture the scene from the restaurant, wherein the suspects could be seen queued up at the wide spread of buffet for the Easter Sunday breakfast.
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Reports came in earlier wherein it was known that a suicide bomber waited patiently in a queue for the Easter Sunday breakfast buffet at the hotel's Cinnamon Grand hotel before setting off explosives strapped to his back.
Carrying a plate, the man, who had registered at the hotel the night before as Mohamed Azzam Mohamed, was just about to be served when he set off his devastating strike in the packed restaurant, a manager at the Sri Lankan hotel said.
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"There was utter chaos," said the manager, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity as he is not allowed to speak for the company.
The first CCTV visuals were captured by the internal CCTV camera at the St Sebastian Church.
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The visuals show a man with a backpack walking into the church, while the Sunday Mass is going on. A lot of other people can also be seen in the video. The video shows visuals from both inside and outside the Church minutes before the suicide bomber detonated the explosives.
On Tuesday, the Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the string of horrific bombings in Colombo on Sunday that killed 359 and injured 500 others.
Earlier in the day, initial probe reports indicated that the terrorist attack was in retaliation to the gruesome shootings on worshippers in two mosques in New Zealand's Christchurch on March 18. The news was further consolidated by Sri Lanka's Deputy Defence Minister.
Sri Lanka’s President gave the military a wider berth to detain and arrest suspects — powers that were used during the 26-year civil war but withdrawn when it ended in 2009.
(With PTI inputs)
19:43 IST, April 24th 2019