Colombo, Aug 23: Sri Lanka’s former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested on Friday for allegedly misusing state funds during his tenure, becoming the first former head of state in the island nation to be taken into custody.
Wickremesinghe, 76, was arrested at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters, where he was summoned to record a statement in connection with an investigation into the alleged misuse of government funds amounting to Sri Lankan rupees 16.6 million.
The veteran opposition leader was subsequently brought before the Colombo Fort magistrate’s court.
The CID charged him under Section 386 and 388 of the penal code and under Section 5(1) of the Public Properties Act. The charges carry a punishment of not less than one year but not exceeding 20 years in jail.
After a lengthy session which lasted over six hours, Magistrate Nilupuli Lankapura ruled that the defence lawyers had failed to submit any special matters that would have been possible for the court to grant bail to the former president. The court remanded him till August 26.
Wickremesinghe, who served as president from 2022 to 2024, has been accused of using state funds to travel to England to attend a convocation ceremony of his wife, Prof Maithree, in September 2023.
It has been alleged that Wickremesinghe was returning from the US after an official engagement and visited the UK at the state’s expense to attend the private engagement of his wife.
The CID had previously questioned his staff about the travel expenses.
Wickremesinghe, who had replaced Gotabaya Rajapaksa as President to serve the balance term until the end of 2024, was credited with steering Sri Lanka out of the economic crisis of 2022.
A lawyer-turned-politician, Wickremesinghe served in Parliament for over five decades and also held six separate terms as Prime Minister.
Wickremesinghe, the nephew of Sri Lanka’s first executive president Junius Jayewardene, was first appointed Prime Minister from 1993 to 1994 after the assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa.
According to BBC Sinhala, Wickremesinghe made 23 foreign trips during his time as president, at a cost of more than SLRs 600 million (USD 2 million).
Wickremesinghe is the first former president to be arrested in Sri Lanka.
Born in 1949 after Sri Lanka gained independence from the British, Wickremesinghe was elected to Parliament in 1977 at the age of 28, having worked in the Youth League of the United National Party (UNP) from his university days.
As the youngest minister in Sri Lanka at the time, he held the post of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Jayewardene.
He was later appointed to the Cabinet as the Minister of Youth Affairs and Employment. He has also held the portfolio of Education. Then, in 1989, as a seasoned legislator, he was made the Leader of the House under President Premadasa. He has also served as the Minister of Industries, Science and Technology.
His party, UNP, the oldest party in the country, had failed to win a single seat in the 2020 parliamentary polls. He was unseated for the first time since 1977 but later found his way to Parliament through the sole national list allocated to the UNP on the basis of cumulative national vote.
In the 2024 elections, he lost to Anura Kumara Dissanayake. (PTI)
