Former presidents back Sri Lanka's jailed ex-leader

COLOMBO: Three former presidents of Sri Lanka expressed solidarity with jailed ex-leader Ranil Wickremesinghe on Sunday and condemned his incarceration as a “calculated assault” on democracy.

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

He has been accused of using $55,000 in state funds for a stopover in Britain while returning home after a G77 summit in Havana and the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2023.

Wickremesinghe, 76, was rushed to the intensive care unit of the main state-run hospital in Colombo on Saturday, 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.

The 80-year-old Kumaratunga said the consequences of 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,” Kumaratunga added.

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

Maithripala Sirisena, 73, who sacked 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,” Sirisena said. “They are polishing the lid of a coffin to bury democracy.”

Wickremesinghe’s own United National Party (UNP) said on Saturday it believed he was being prosecuted out of fear that he could stage a comeback.

He lost the presidential election in September to Anura Kumara Dissanayake, but has remained politically active despite holding no elected office.

Wickremesinghe was arrested as part of 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.

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