Former Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Managing Director Rumy Jauffer has been remanded until June 17 by the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court over allegations that Rs. 7.8 million in tourism promotion funds were misused for the 2014 Uva Provincial Council election campaign, NewsFirst reported.
Magistrate Pasan Amarasena issued the remand order after Jauffer and former SLTPB Chairman Bhashwara Gunaratne surrendered to court on Wednesday through their legal representatives.
Gunaratne was released on bail under strict conditions — a cash bail of Rs. 100,000 and two personal sureties of Rs. 10 million each. The magistrate further directed that former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa be arrested and produced before the court.
The original warrants in the case were issued by the same magistrate on May 29, when the court ordered the arrest of Basil Rajapaksa and others over the Rs. 7.8 million SLTPB funds case on the advice of the Attorney General. The May 29 order also imposed a foreign travel ban on the suspects.
According to the CID, approximately 12,000 T-shirts were printed in 2014 under the guise of tourism promotion but carried political messaging — a portrait of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa on one side and the name of a political party on the other — and were distributed at a Monaragala District political event during the 2014 Uva Provincial Council election campaign.
The Wednesday hearing is the first formal arraignment in the SLTPB track and converts what had been an arrest-warrant case into an active prosecution under the Offences Against Public Property Act. With Jauffer in remand custody until June 17, the burden now shifts to the CID to produce Basil Rajapaksa — who has been the subject of a separate Matara arrest warrant since May 22 over the Brown Hill land purchase and a Colombo travel ban since May 23 in an air-ticket deception matter.
