Former Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe has been arrested on charges of misuse of government money. The 76-year-old was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Friday on charges of spending state money on a personal foreign travel during his tenure as the President.
Wickremesinghe is alleged to have spent public funds visiting England in September 2023 to witness a convocation ceremony of his wife, Professor Maithree Wickremesinghe, from a British university, police said.
"We are remanding him before the Colombo Fort magistrate," an officer said, while adding that charges were being filed for utilizing state funds for personal gain.
Earlier, police had interrogated his staff over the cost of travel. In 2023, Wickremesinghe had made a stopover in London from Havana, where he had been present for a G77 summit. In the UK, he and his wife took part in a ceremony at the University of Wolverhampton.
Wickremesinghe has insisted that his wife's travel costs were paid for out of his own pocket and that state funds were not used.
But the CID alleges Wickremesinghe spent government funds on his private trip and that his bodyguards were remunerated by the state.
Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022, finishing the rest of Gotabaya Rajapaksa's term after Rajapaksa stepped down in the face of months of protests against corruption and misrule accusations.
He is also credited with stabilizing Sri Lanka's economy after the nation's worst-ever financial crisis in 2022. Wickremesinghe fell in his bid for re-election in September.
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