A startling revelation has shaken the country: the Special Criminal Investigation Department probably travelled to the United Kingdom without informing the Attorney General’s Department, to probe the authenticity of an invitation letter issued to former President Ranil Wickremesinghe by the University of Wolverhampton. The Sunday Times reports that there was no approval or instructions by the Attorney General regarding the departure of the five-member CID team.
According to the sources in the department, no senior officer of the Attorney General’s Department was aware of this trip, including the Attorney General Parinda Ranasinghe, Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris or the office of Solicitor General Wasantha Perera. The sources further confirmed that the CID had taken a decision to send the team of its own, without keeping the Attorney General’s Department informed.
The team comprising an Assistant Superintendent of Police, Chief Inspectors and two other junior officers left for the United Kingdom early this week on a five-day official visit. They have scheduled a meeting tomorrow with Saroja Sirisena, the former Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, to record a statement from her.
When then President Wickremesinghe visited the United Kingdom in September 2023 to attend a convocation ceremony at the University of Wolverhampton, Sirisena was serving as the High Commissioner. Still based in the United Kingdom, she has been asked to come to the Sri Lanka High Commission in London for the meeting with the CID team. Wickremesinghe’s wife, Professor R. Wickremesinghe was also said to have been offered a position during the same visit.
The CID has initiated a case against Wickremesinghe for misappropriating 16.6 million rupees in public funds for this foreign trip, which the CID has termed as a private visit. He was arrested in August this year in connection with the case, remanded in custody and later released on bail. Questions continue to grow on the legitimacy of expenses incurred during the said trip and the validity of the invitation letter used to justify it. No statement has been issued from the Attorney General’s Department regarding unauthorized departure of the CID team. The CID officials have also not clarified the decision to travel without notification to the country’s chief legal authority. This has heightened the unease about the procedural breaches, institutional transparency, and political pressures that may exist behind this investigation.
