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| Sunday, 1 September 2002 |
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Permission of Speaker sought : CID checks Ratwatte's assets declaration by S. SELVAKUMAR Police investigators are to ask the Speaker of Parliament whether the more than Rs. 40 million worth of certificates of deposits belonging to former senior PA government minister Anuruddha Ratwatte and his wife had been included in his Declaration of Assets submitted to Parliament. The declaration was made by Mr. Ratwatte in January 2002, just after a month of his election to the present Parliament. Ratwatte, himself, has told news media that the police probe was a "harassment". A special team of detectives of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) are now probing the discovery of this large amount of funds held in the form of certificates by the Ratwattes. The discovery was made after police obtained a court order to open personal deposit lockers belonging to the former PA strongman in a Colombo bank last week. Police will now seek the Speaker's permission to check on Mr. Ratwatte's declaration to Parliament. The Certificates of Deposit were in the names of Mr. Ratwatte and Mrs. Ramani Ratwatte nee Imbuldeniya except for one which was in the name of Mrs. Ratwatte and Mr. Shevan Kanageswaran, her son from a former marriage. This particular certificate of deposit carried an address at Issipathana Mawatha, Colombo 5, whereas all others carried the official Stanmore Crescent address of Ratwatte when he was Deputy Defence Minister. CID sleuths believe that all certificates of deposit except for the one in Kanageswaran and Imbuldeniya's names were bought and deposited when the former minister was holding the official post in the last PA regime. When a team of CID officials met Colombo Fort Magistrate Priyantha Fernando in this regard on Friday afternoon they were asked to submit a detailed report to court on September 3. Mr. Ratwatte speaking to the press from the premises of the bank soon after the CID discovered the certificates of deposit, said that when the Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the LTTE he was put in remand prison. "Now when the government is preparing to lift the ban on the LTTE from September 6, they are accusing me of hiding arms, ammunitions and drugs in safety lockers of the Bank. However much they harass me we are against the division of the country," he added. He further said that he would take legal action against all those who infringed his right to deposit certificates of deposit in a bank's safety lockers. A CID source that wished to remain anonymous said the million dollar question is from where did the former minister got this enormous sum of money and also whether he has declared this money in the declaration of assets he submitted to Parliament. Meanwhile, the CID is also likely to seek further court orders to ascertain whether Ratwatte has similar deposits in other banks, too. So far the safety lockers of only one bank has been searched. "We are in the process of receiving some vital information of some other material investments he is supposed to have made. If those information are correct what we have discovered so far is only the tip of the iceberg," the source further said. |
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