The Criminal Investigation Department will submit a formal application to the University of Wolverhampton for records relating to the invitation it sent to former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, after the Attorney General’s Department advised that the request must go through Sri Lanka’s mutual legal assistance regime, the Sunday Times reports.
The CID had earlier obtained the same details by post directly from the university. In a letter signed by State Counsel Sajith Bandara, the AG’s Department said the formal channel under the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, No. 25 of 2002, must now be used so that any evidence sourced from the UK can be relied on at trial.
When the case was called this week before the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court, CID officers said they would study the AG’s advice and report back on next steps. They told the magistrate they already hold the documents the AG has now asked them to re-obtain through the formal channel. Investigators also submitted to court the witness statement they recorded from former First Lady Maithri Wickremesinghe regarding the UK visit.
The procedural escalation comes days after the magistrate ordered the AG to file indictments against the former president and former Presidential Secretary Saman Ekanayake without delay over Rs. 16.6 million in public money spent on what investigators allege was a private foreign trip. The court has ruled there is sufficient evidence to support Public Property Act charges, with the university invitation a central piece of the prosecution’s case.
The Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act is the standard Sri Lankan instrument for compelling foreign jurisdictions to share evidentiary records. Re-routing the Wolverhampton request through that channel is intended to insulate the file from defence challenges to authenticity at the High Court stage.
