Sajin Vass gets bail

Former Foreign Ministry Monitoring MP Sajin Vass Gunawardena was released yesterday on cash bail of Rs. 500,000 with four sureties of Rs.5 million each following an order by Colombo Chief Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya yesterday. 

Gunawardena was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on 27 June with charges of money laundering and intimidating businessman Krishna Selvanadan and forcibly obtaining money from him. 

The Magistrate imposed a travel ban on the former MP and ordered him to report to the Chief Magistrate’s Court Registrar every Friday.

The lawyer who appeared for Gunawardena told Court that the CID was maliciously filing allegations against the suspect in an attempt to mislead the Court. He also requested the Court to have Gunawardena released on bail as the prosecution had no evidence to prove that he had interfered with witnesses. 

The next hearing was postponed to 29 July.