COLOMBO (Reuters) -Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department on Friday in connection with allegations of misuse of state funds, local television channel Ada Derana reported.
Wickremesinghe, 76, was taken into custody after arriving at the CID office in the capital Colombo to record a statement in an investigation into his visit to London to attend his wife’s graduation ceremony, the report said.
A Sri Lankan police spokesperson did not immediately confirm the arrest. Wickremesinghe’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
He was due to appear in court later on Friday, local media reported.
A lawyer who served as Sri Lanka’s prime minister a record six times, Wickremesinghe was made president in 2022 during the Indian Ocean island nation’s debilitating financial crisis.
Wickremesinghe, who is the leader of the United National Party (UNP), took over after widespread protests caused by a economic meltdown forced his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and later resign.
He finished third in last year’s presidential election – the first since the economic crisis – behind Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who won the vote, and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa.
The election was a referendum on Wickremesinghe, who led a successful but fragile economic recovery that included austerity measures that angered voters.
Born into a prominent family of politicians and businessmen with large media interests, in 1978 Wickremesinghe was, at 29, made the country’s youngest cabinet minister by his uncle, President Junius Jayewardene.
In 1994, following assassinations that wiped out several of his senior colleagues, Wickremesinghe became leader of the UNP.
(Writing by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by YP Rajesh and Joe Bavier)
