{"id":5493,"date":"2025-08-22T13:09:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/sri-lanka-ex-president-arrested-on-corruption-charges\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T13:09:40","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:09:40","slug":"sri-lanka-ex-president-arrested-on-corruption-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/sri-lanka-ex-president-arrested-on-corruption-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka ex-president ‘arrested’ on corruption charges"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sri Lanka’s former president Ranil Wickremesinghe addresses supporters during an election rally in Minuwangoda in Gampaha district, Sri Lanka, September 17, 2024. — Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan police arrested former president Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday, making him the most senior opposition figure to be detained under an anti-corruption crackdown by the new government.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka’s anti-graft units have led the crackdown since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake came to power in September on a promise to fight corruption.<\/p>\n

Wickremesinghe, 76, who lost the last election to Dissanayake, was taken into custody after being questioned about a September 2023 visit to London to attend a ceremony for his wife at a British university, a police detective told AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“We are producing him before the Colombo Fort magistrate,” the officer said, adding that they were pressing charges for using state resources for personal purposes.<\/p>\n

Wickremesinghe had stopped in London in 2023 on his way back from Havana, where he attended a G77 summit.<\/p>\n

His office had previously denied that he abused his position to visit London.<\/p>\n

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Three of his then senior aides were questioned this month by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).<\/p>\n

He and his wife, Maithree, attended a University of Wolverhampton ceremony where she was conferred an honorary professorship.<\/p>\n

Wickremesinghe had maintained that his wife’s travel expenses were met by her and that no state funds were used.<\/p>\n

However, the CID alleged that Wickremesinghe used government money for his travel on a private visit and that his bodyguards were also paid by the state.<\/p>\n

Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 for the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s term after Rajapaksa stepped down following months of street protests over alleged corruption and mismanagement.<\/p>\n

Wickremesinghe secured a $2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in early 2023 and was credited with stabilising the economy after the country’s worst-ever financial meltdown in 2022.<\/p>\n

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He doubled taxes and removed energy subsidies as part of tough austerity measures to raise state revenue.<\/p>\n

He lost his re-election bid in September but remained a key opposition figure despite his coalition holding only two seats in the 225-member parliament.<\/p>\n

Members of Wickremesinghe’s United National Party were seen arriving at the Colombo Fort magistrate’s court, where he was due to be taken later on Friday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/sub><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka ex-president ‘arrested’ on corruption charges<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sri Lanka’s former president Ranil Wickremesinghe addresses supporters during an election rally in Minuwangoda in Gampaha district, Sri Lanka, September 17, 2024. — Reuters COLOMBO: Sri Lankan police arrested former president Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday, making him the most senior opposition figure to be detained under an anti-corruption crackdown by the new government. Sri Lanka’s…<\/p>\n

Read More “Sri Lanka ex-president ‘arrested’ on corruption charges”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}