Udayanga Weeratunga files FR to recall Interpol warrant

Former Ambassador to Russia Udayanga Weeratunga yesterday filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court seeking an interim order to recall the warrant issued through Interpol for his arrest. 

The police sought a warrant from the Colombo Fort Magistrate to arrest Weeratunga, a close relative of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa 20 October 2015 over alleged financial fraud in procuring seven MiG-27 ground attack aircraft for the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLFA). 

Weeratunga had filed this petition through his mother-in-law Latha Indrani, the power of attorney holder of the petitioner listing an address in Ukraine as his residence in his petition. 

Furthermore, through the petition, Weeratunga has also sought an interim order preventing the suspension of his bank accounts by the Central Bank Financial Intelligence Unit Director. 

Stating in his petition that a Chief Inspector of the FCID, named as the seventh respondent, had moved the Magistrate’s Court for a warrant for his arrest, Weeratunga sought a declaration from Court that the Chief Inspector infringed on the petitioner’s fundamental rights guaranteed in terms of Articles 11, 12(1) and 13 of the Constitution.

Weeratunga further claimed that the Central Bank Financial Intelligence Unit Director had infringed on his fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution by the purported decision to suspend the debit transaction of the bank accounts of the petitioner in contravention to the provisions of the Financial Transaction Reporting Act No. 6 of 2006.