Former Sri Lankan President Wickremesinghe arrested on allegations of misusing state funds

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan police on Friday arrested the country’s former president and senior opposition politician Ranil Wickremesinghe over allegations of misusing public funds during his tenure as president, police said.

Wickremesinghe, who served as the island nation’s president from 2022 to 2024, was arrested on allegations of using public funds to attend his wife’s graduation ceremony in London after an official visit to the U.S, police spokesman Fedrick Wootler told The Associated Press.

Wickremesinghe's aide, Danushka Ramanayake, said that the former president has been taken to a court after being arrested by the Financial Crimes Investigations Department.

Wickremesinghe is the first Sri Lankan former head of state to be arrested and is the most high profile leader who is under investigation for corruption under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's government which came to power last year promising to punish those accused of corruption under previous governments

Dissanayake won the presidential election in September last year in an election that saw voters reject an old guard accused of leading the country into an economic crisis. Two months later, his party won a landslide victory in the parliamentary election that enabled him to form a strong government.

Already, more than a dozen political leaders of the previous government and ex-high government officials have been arrested and are under investigation for alleged corruptions and malpractices.

Wickremesinghe became president after Sri Lanka’s economic upheaval led to a political crisis that forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign in 2022.

Wickremesinghe is credited with stabilizing the crumbling economy with inflation falling, the local currency strengthened and foreign reserves increased under him. But he was severely criticized for implementing stringent austerity measures including raising taxes and utility bills that came as a part of a bailout package with the International Monetary Fund entered into by his government.