Sri Lanka’s Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe Arrested On Misuse Of State Funds Charges

Sri Lanka’s former president and six-time prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was arrested on Friday on charges of misusing state funds during his tenure as head of state. The 76-year-old leader has been remanded in custody until August 26, when the next hearing is scheduled. According to officials, Wickremesinghe’s arrest followed questioning by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) regarding a September 2023 trip to a British university, where his wife, a senior academic, was recognised.

Investigators have also flagged concerns over the former president’s extensive foreign travel. Wickremesinghe made 23 overseas trips while in office, at a cost of more than Rs 600 million. His office has denied any wrongdoing, insisting that all visits were linked to official duties. It pointed out that after attending the G-77 summit in Cuba, Wickremesinghe flew to the United States to address the UN General Assembly and later stopped in the United Kingdom, where he also held diplomatic meetings.

This is the first time in Sri Lanka’s history that a former president has been arrested. The development comes amid a wider government drive against corruption, which has already led to the arrests of several senior politicians and officials in recent months.

Wickremesinghe, leader of the centre-right United National Party, assumed the presidency in July 2022 after Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned following a mass uprising triggered by the economic crisis. He is credited with stabilising the country during its worst downturn in decades but lost the 2024 presidential election to Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who campaigned on an anti-corruption platform.

On Friday, former president Maithripala Sirisena and several opposition leaders, including Namal Rajapaksa, son of ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa, were present at the Colombo Magistrate’s Court. While opposition figures criticised the arrest, Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala defended the move in Parliament, saying the law was being “applied equally” to all. The arrest comes as another setback for Wickremesinghe, following last month’s Supreme Court ruling that the state of emergency he declared in 2022, while serving as acting president, was unconstitutional and violated fundamental rights.