Sri Lanka’s jailed ex-president granted bail

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was granted bail on Tuesday, four days after his arrest on the charge of misusing state funds for an overseas visit.

The ex-leader, 76, was arrested on Friday accused of spending $55,000 in government funds on a 2023 stopover in Britain while returning from attending the G77 summit in Havana and the UN General Assembly in New York.

The Colombo Fort Magistrate Nilupuli Lankapura ordered Wickremesinghe’s release on a five-million-rupee ($16,600) bond after a lengthy hearing held under tight security, including elite troops.

A few hundred protesters had gathered outside the court earlier in the day in support of Wickremesinghe, and were met by riot police who held back the crowd.

After being remanded in custody on Friday, the former leader was rushed to a prison hospital and then the country’s main state-run hospital suffering from dehydration, but hospital officials said his condition was stable.

Sri Lanka ex-president rushed to intensive care after jailing

Wickremesinghe joined Tuesday’s bail hearing via video link from his bed at the National Hospital of Colombo, where he is being treated under armed guard.

The judge ordered his next hearing for October 29.

His arrest came as part of his successor Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s campaign against endemic corruption on the island nation, which is still emerging from its worst economic crisis in 2022.

Three former Sri Lankan presidents expressed solidarity with Wickremesinghe on Sunday and condemned his incarceration as a “calculated assault” on democracy.

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

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

He has maintained that his wife’s travel expenses in Britain were met by her personally and that no state funds were used for the visit.

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