By Kassapa
The sentencing of former minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage to twenty years of rigorous imprisonment has evoked mixed responses: satisfaction among the general public and the government and shock and fear in the opposition, more so in the ranks of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).
The SLPP and its de facto leader Namal Rajapaksa had been crowing loudly, challenging the government to punish wrongdoers after proving their guilt in a court of law. Statements to this effect elicited a response from President Anura Kumara Dissanayake who said, ‘yes, we will but when but don’t whimper when it happens’. It has happened now and the SLPP has been shell-shocked into silence.
Aluthgamage and his partner in crime Nalin Fernando who was Sathosa Chairman at the time of the offence but later went on to become Minister of Trade after entering Parliament in 2020 were convicted by a High Court Trial-at-Bar last week. Their long sentences- twenty years and twenty-five years respectively- if upheld on appeal and if not granted those notorious presidential pardons- will mean that their political lives are now effectively over.
The case against Aluthgamage and Fernando is that they caused a loss of Rs.53 million to the state by distributing sports equipment, draught boards and carrom boards, to thousands of sports clubs in the lead up to the 2015 presidential election, ostensibly as an inducement to vote for Mahinda Rajapaksa who went on to lose to the unfancied Maithripala Sirisena.
This case is quite similar to the case against former Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga and former Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) Anusha Pelpita. They were charged with misappropriation of government funds by distributing ‘Sil’ cloth to temples at a cost of Rs. 600 million to the TRC during the 2015 Presidential Election. The Colombo High Court sentenced Weeratunga and Pelpita to three years imprisonment and fined them Rs. 2 million each. The court ordered the two officials to pay Rs. 50 million each to the TRC. However, they were both acquitted by the Court of Appeal three years later.
Ironically, the case against Aluthgamage and Fernando was filed not by the present Jathika Jana Balavegaya (JJB) government but during the ‘yahapalanaya’ regime. In fact, this may even suit the JJB narrative that it is not on a mission to extract political revenge from its rivals. The government’s stance is that its role is two-fold. Firstly, it would expedite investigating allegations of corruption and abuse of power by providing adequate resources for this purpose. Secondly, it will adopt a strict policy of non-interference in the investigations which are being handled by the Police, the Attorney General’s Department and the Commission Investigating Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC).
The opposition Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) has made a lame attempt to claim some credit for last week’s convictions, alluding to the fact that it was the ‘yahapalanaya’ regime in which many of their members played a leading role that initiated the prosecution. Of course they forget that other leading lights of the ‘yahapalanaya’ regime such as Ranil Wickremesinghe embraced Aluthgamage when Wickremesinghe became President and in return, Aluthgamage played an integral part in his pesidential election campaign last year.
The Aluthgamage-Fernando verdict is different from the various other dramas that were staged during the ‘yahapalanaya’ regime. Then, politicians were detained, paraded before media cameras- where they gleefully provided ‘voice cuts’- and released on bail. More often than not, the cases against them went into limbo or were later dropped on technical grounds and didn’t proceed to prosecution.
Sources say that the legal teams for Aluthgamage and Fernando are scouring law books to try and get the duo released on bail until an appeal is heard. However, that wouldn’t be easy because the verdict was delivered not by a single High Court judge but by a three judge Trial-at-bar of the High Court. In such instances, even an application for bail is likely to be referred to the Supreme Court for determination. An appeal will most certainly be lodged but its determination will take a considerable period of time so the most likely outcome is an extended stay in prison, at the very least.
This has caused a ripple effect in the ranks of the SLPP. Already, many of their stalwarts are either in remand or have been released on bail. They include Keheliya Rambukwella, Duminda Dissanayake, Chamara Sampath Dassanayake, S.M. Ranjith, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan and Mervyn Silva. Many other cases are in the pipeline and CIABOC is doing a good job of filing indictments and finalising cases which have been long overdue.
This is what led to speculation that some SLPP stalwarts are actively considering leaving the country. From the perspective of politicians who face the prospect of serious charges being levelled against them, this appears to be a ‘reasonable’ option if they fear there is a strong chance of being convicted. Given the verdict on Aluthgamage and Fernando, reports suggest that more former MPs and ministers are entertaining this thought.
When legal proceedings are commenced there is a high possibility that the accused politicians will be produced in court and bans against them travelling overseas will be sought and, in most cases, obtained. Once this stage is reached, it would be too late for them to attempt to leave the country. Hence the rationale of leaving the island when it is still legally possible to do so. On the other hand, investigating authorities are handicapped by the fact that they cannot go about requesting travel bans for each and every suspect, unless they have sufficient grounds to substantiate their claims.
It is no secret that one of the main campaign slogans of the JJB last years was that it would ‘catch the thieves’. More recently, the government has been attracting criticism that it was not doing enough in this regard. The verdicts against Aluthgamage and Fernando have altered that perspective, at least for now.
Convictions have escalated from nabbing former chief ministers to former cabinet ministers and many ex-ministers are feeling the heat. The question on the public’s mind now is whether it will rise a notch further and target those in leadership positions?
