Former presidents back Sri Lanka’s jailed ex-leader

COLOMBO - Three past presidents of Sri Lanka expressed solidarity with jailed former leader Ranil Wickremesinghe on Aug 24 and condemned

his incarceration

as a “calculated assault” on democracy.

The trio, former political rivals of Mr Wickremesinghe – president between July 2022 and September 2024 – said the charges against him were frivolous.

He has been accused of using US$55,000 (S$70,500) in state funds for a stopover in Britain while returning home after a Group of 77 summit in Havana and the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2023.

Mr Wickremesinghe, 76, was

rushed to the intensive care

unit of the main state-run hospital in Colombo on Aug 23, a day after being remanded in custody.

Doctors said he was suffering from severe dehydration on top of acute diabetes and high blood pressure.

“What we are witnessing is a calculated onslaught on the very essence of our democratic values,” former president Chandrika Kumaratunga said in a statement.

Ms Kumaratunga, 80, said the consequences of Mr Wickremesinghe’s jailing would go beyond the fate of an individual and could affect the rights of all citizens.

“I join wholeheartedly in expressing my unreserved opposition to these initiatives, which all political leaders are duty-bound to resist,” she added.

Her successor Mahinda Rajapaksa, 79, also expressed solidarity with Mr Wickremesinghe and visited him in prison on Aug 23, shortly before he was moved to intensive care.

Mr Maithripala Sirisena, 73, who sacked Mr Wickremesinghe from the prime minister’s post in October 2018 before being forced by the Supreme Court to reinstate him 52 days later, described the jailing as a witch-hunt.

“What we are seeing is a systematic campaign to silence opponents of the new government,” Mr Sirisena said. “They are polishing the lid of a coffin to bury democracy.”

Mr Wickremesinghe’s own United National Party said on Aug 23 that it believed he was being prosecuted out of fear that he could stage a comeback.

He

lost the presidential election in September

to Mr Anura Kumara Dissanayake, but has remained politically active despite holding no elected office.

Mr Wickremesinghe was arrested as part of Mr Dissanayake’s campaign against endemic corruption in the island nation, which is emerging from its worst economic meltdown in 2022.

He has maintained that his wife’s travel expenses in Britain were met by her personally and that no state funds were used.

Mr Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 after the country’s then leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa stepped down following months of street protests fuelled by the economic crisis. AFP