Arrest warrants issued against Weerawansa, Samaraweera

The Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court has issued warrants to arrest the National Freedom Front (NFF) leader parliamentarian Wimal Weerawansa and MP Jayantha Samaraweera and present them before the court.

Colombo Chief Magistrate Lal Ranasinghe Bandara yesterday issued warrants against the two parliamentarians since they have failed to appear in court when a case filed against them was taken up for hearing.

The case was filed against MP Wimal Weerawansa and six others over several charges, including inconveniencing the public by protesting against the arrival of the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein outside the UN complex in Thunmulla in 2016. When the case was taken up today, MPs Wimal Weerawansa and Jayantha Samaraweera who have been named as suspects in the case did not appear in court.The other suspects in the case, parliamentarian Weerakumara Dissanayake, Piyasiri Wijenayake, Mohammed Muzammil and Roger Seneviratne appeared today in the court. They were ordered to appear before the court again on 12 June.

The Magistrate also ordered the Cinnamon Gardens police to report the progress in the investigations on that day.