Former President ‘denies immunity claim in alleged bond scam’

Sri Lanka’s former president Ranil Wickremesinghe has never requested presidential immunity in the controversial bond scam legal process as claimed by Cabinet Spokesman Vijitha Herath, his sources said.

In his first Cabinet media briefing on Tuesday, Herath said presidential immunity stated in the constitution has been considered for not calling Wickremesinghe to the courts.

“There was no need for former President Ranil Wickramasinghe to request any immunity, and the former President has never requested such immunity,” Dhanushka Ramanayake, Wickremesinghe’s Presidential Media Director, said in a statement.

Presidential immunity in the past had allowed past presidents not to be accountable for their wrong decisions or to appear in the courts in legal cases against them. In response to a question, Hearth said Wickremesinghe was also not the president anymore and did not have immunity.

“That legal case did not proceed because the immunity specified in the constitution was used. Now we have the power to bring him before the courts,” the Cabinet Spokesman said.

Ramanayake said that Herath’s statement was “incorrect.” The entire public, including the media, is being misled based on that statement made knowingly or unknowingly,” he said. A presidential commission of inquiry found that Arjuna Mahendran, handpicked for the Central Bank Governor post by Wickremesinghe in 2015, had interfered in a bond auction and leaked inside information to help Perpetual Treasuries, owned by his son-in-law, to make billions of rupees in profits.

The inquiry found that Mahendran raised a policy rate floor outside the regular monetary policy meeting and pressured a tender board to sell bonds at high prices.

The inquiry also found that Perpetual Treasuries had paid central bank dealers, managing the country’s largest pension fund, to buy bonds at high prices and other state funds.

The Presidential Commission later released Wickremesinghe, confirming that he had nothing to do with the bond scam before a legal case was charged against 10 accused, Ramanayake said.

“Another point to be emphasized is that former President Ranil Wickramasinghe is not even a witness in this case,” he said.

“In such a background, as a responsible minister and Cabinet spokesman, I kindly inform you that it is inappropriate to make false statements knowingly or unknowingly.”