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Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Wednesday, 8 January 2020 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Government MPs yesterday slammed UNP MP Ranjan Ramanayake over the contents of leaked phone
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Namal Rajapaksa |
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Mahindananda Aluthgama |
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Ranjan Ramanayake |
recordings, saying the phone conversations reveal the extent to which the Yahapalanaya Government used political influence to bend the law to hound political opponents.
MPs Mahindananda Aluthgama and Namal Rajapaksa strongly condemned the previous Government for the manner in which arrested Opposition lawmakers had been detained for months without due process.
“UNP MPs shouting here about arrests under this Government are forgetting how they behaved against Opposition MPs when they were in power. The leaked phone conversations between Ranjan Ramanayake and senior Police officers and members of the Judiciary show clearly that the previous Government politicised these institutions,” Rajapaksa said.
Aluthgamage too condemned the previous Government’s handling of investigations against political opponents.
Raising a privilege issue in the House, he said that in one leaked phone conversation between former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayake, the former can be heard sanctioning the movie star-turned-politician to assassinate Aluthgamage.
“We thought it was only Ramanayake who is involved, but in one phone recording, the former Prime Minister is heard giving his approval to kill me. This is a grave situation where the then-Prime Minister and Deputy Minister were plotting the assassination of an Opposition MP,” he said.
Aluthgamage said he will lodge a complaint with the Police today about the contents of the tapes, and urged Speaker Karu Jayasuriya to act in this regard.
“When the Opposition raised their voice against corruption of the Government, they were trying to shut us up by killing us. Is this acceptable behaviour by a Prime Minister?” he queried.
Aluthgamage said there are 121,000 recordings of Ranjan Ramanayake in conversation with various public officials, and only five have been released so far, and these recordings contain telephone conversations with judges, CID officers, the FCID etc.
“The former Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe said that at the time he resigned, the IGP and FCID were summoned to Temple Trees, with Ranjan Ramanayake and Ajith Perera in attendance,” said Aluthgamage.
