Ranil Wickremesinghe was remanded in custody charged with using taxpayers' money to fund a two-day UK visit in September 2023 for his wife's honorary professorship at the University of Wolverhampton. He denied misuse of state funds and said his wife paid her own travel expenses. The visit followed his return from the G77 summit in Havana and the UN General Assembly in New York. The alleged offences carry up to 20 years' imprisonment and an estimated fine of 16.6m rupees (41,000). He was admitted to Colombo National Hospital with acute dehydration and had severe diabetes and high blood pressure. Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 after Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation and lost the following September election to Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, 76, was remanded in custody on Friday after being accused of using taxpayers' money to pay for a two-day visit to the UK in September 2023 to attend a ceremony at the University of Wolverhampton granting an honorary professorship to his wife. Wickremesinghe has denied the misuse of state money, and said his wife paid her own travel expenses. The visit took place upon Wickremesinghe's return from the G77 summit in Havana and the UN general assembly in New York.
Wickremesinghe became president in July 2022 after Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation following months of protests driven by the country's worst economic downturn since independence. Before assuming the presidency, Wickremesinghe, unpopular with protesters as he was seen as an ally of the Rajapaksa clan, had been prime minister six times since entering politics in 1977, though he never completed a term. In a significant political shift for the country last September, Wickremesinghe was replaced by Dissanayake, the head of the leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party.
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