Former Minister Wimal Weerawansa and an former Deputy General Manager of the National Engineering Corporation (NEC) Samantha Lokuhennadige who were arrested by the FCID on charges of misusing 40 state vehicles belonging to the NEC and causing Rs. 90 million financial loss to the state during 2011-2014, were further remanded till February 7 by Colombo Fort Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne today .
Delivering a comprehensive judgment on the requests made earlier by the defence counsel, the Magistrate today refused granting bail for the suspects after considering the details submitted in court by the FCID.
The Magistrate refusing bail observed that the prosecution had filed sufficient circumstantial evidence against the suspects because it was apparently evident that first suspect, Mr. Weerawansa had instigated officials at the NEC to release its vehicles to his close relatives and members of his political party inappropriately.
The Magistrate further observed that despite the fact that NEC was a separate entity; the former Minister had anyway misappropriated state properties by violating the sections 5 (1) and 10 of the Public Property Act.
She also rejected the exceptional circumstances put forward by the defence earlier that Mr. Weerawansa’s daughter was in depression due to the recent incidents.The Magistrate told that the exceptional reasons brought in court on behalf of the suspects cannot be regarded as extraordinary circumstances.
Earlier, the defence also moved an exceptional circumstance that there was a technical error in the certificate filed in court by the prosecution in respect of the Public Property Act and it was a breach of precedent established by the High Court recently. However, the Magistrate disregarded the argument saying that Magistrate’s court are not binding with the decisions given by the high court completely since the so called decision was not given by the final appellate court or the supreme court.
The FCID inquired the allegations upon a complaint received by the former Chairman of the NEC and based on the audit report made by the internal inspection of the NEC in 2014.
According to the Prosecution, the first suspect, Werawansa had misused 40 vehicles attached to the NEC by using them for his private and political activities in the disguise of using them for the ‘Janasevana’ Housing Construction Project.
The FCID said that the so-called vehicles were taken by the NEC on the leasing basis for their various mechanisms in the Corporation. And the former Minister had both orally and in writing instructed inappropriately certain authorities of the NEC to release vehicles to his cousins, members of the National Freedom Party and some other persons who were not permitted to use such vehicles.
The FCID leveled the allegations against him under section 386 (Criminal Misappropriation) of the Penal Code and section 5(1) of the Public Property Act, where if the misuse is above Rs.25, 000 bail is not applicable unless exceptional circumstances or a High Court Judge.
No comments:
Post a Comment