MARCH 10th DECISIVE DAY FOR WIMAL’S FAMILY AS VERDICT ON POSSESSING TWO PASSPORTS BY WIFE WILL BE DELIVERED

The case is being heard at the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court before Chief Magistrate Buddhika C. Ragala.

Following Wimal Weerawansa and Udaya Gammanpila being sacked from their ministerial posts, media and political commentators are of the view that the verdict will be very decisive.

Between September 13, 2010 and February 26, 2015, the accused was in possession of an unauthorized Sri Lankan Passport bearing No. D3642817 in Colombo without legal authority and the CID has filed charges against Shashi for an offense punishable under Section 45 (1) of the Immigration and Emigration Act No. 20 of 1948 which was amended as No. 16 of 1993, No. 42 of 1998 and No. 31 of 2006.

Were the children’s birth certificates amended too?

Meanwhile, the CID has informed the Colombo Magistrate’s Court that it has been revealed that former Minister Wimal Weerawansa and his wife Shashi Weerawansa have given fake birthdays to their children’s birth certificates.

Former Minister Wimal Weerawansa was born in 1965 but he changed it to 1970, the CID told the court.

Shashi Weerawansa was born in 1967 but was changed to be born in 1971 and the police notified court that she had also obtained NICs according to the amended dates.

Meanwhile, former Controller of Immigration and Emigration Chulananda Perera had previously testified before the Colombo Magistrate’s Court that the date of birth which was included in the application for a diplomatic passport differed from the ordinary passport of Wimal Weerawansa’s wife.

However, he said that he had not reported it to the CID based on humanitarian grounds.

Shashi Weerawansa’s application for a diplomatic passport stated her year of birth as 1971, but Chulananda Perera, the former Controller of Immigration and Emigration, added that the year of birth on her regular passport was 1967.

Former Controller of Immigration and Emigration Chulananda Perera, who testified under the direction of the State Counsel, had informed the court that Wimal Weerawansa, the then Minister of Housing and Construction, had requested him over the phone to “give his wife a diplomatic passport”.

“Accordingly, one day the accused Shashi Weerawansa came to me. She said the security of her and her family members had been threatened after the arrest of her brother Ajith Kumara in connection with the bombing of Parliament.

Therefore, she requested me to correct the incorrect information regarding the name and date of birth of her ordinary passport obtained in 2004 and to issue a diplomatic passport with the new information,”  Chulananda Perera told the court.

“After considering her confession, she was issued a diplomatic passport on humanitarian grounds,” Chulananda told the court.