Rishad Bathiudeen is a former Cabinet minister who currently leads an opposition party in Sri Lanka's Parliament.

He and his brother, Reyaj Bathiudeen, were arrested in the capital for "aiding and abetting the suicide bombers who committed the Easter Sunday carnage," said police spokesman Ajith Rohana.

He said the brothers have not yet been officially charged but were arrested based on direct evidence, as well as what he called circumstantial and "scientific" evidence.

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The Sri Lanka national was taken into custody in the Middle East and deported to the Indian Ocean island nation on Friday, alongside four other suspects.

The Easter Sunday suicide bombings targeted three churches, three luxury hotels and two other locations and subsequently triggered a flare-up of ethnic violence between the country's Sinhala majority and Muslim minority.

The majority of those killed in the Easter Sunday bombings were Sinhala Catholics, and Islamist extremists later claimed responsibility for the attacks. Read more