Sri Lanka economic crisis: CID interrogates 4 MPs over attacks on protesters

Sri Lanka economic crisis: CID interrogates 4 MPs over attacks on protesters

Officers from Sri Lanka Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) have questioned four Members of Parliament (MPs), including two former ministers, over last week’s violence against protesters at two protest sites in Colombo, the country’s largest city, local media has reported.

According to reports, a CID team arrived at the Parliament Complex on Wednesday to interrogate–with the Speaker’s permission–and record the statements of Rohitha Abeygunawardena and CB Ratnayake, the two ex-ministers. The team also questioned and recorded the statements of MPs Sahan Pradeep and Sanjeewa Edirimanne.

On Tuesday too, a CID team questioned several parliamentarians in connection with the May 9 attacks on demonstrators by supporters of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his older brother, then-prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, at the ‘Main Go Gama’ and ‘Gota Go Gama’ protest sites, at Temple Trees and Galle Face Green, respectively, in Colombo.

More than 100 protesters were injured at Galle Face Green as a result of the mob attack. This prompted Mahinda Rajapaksa, already under pressure to step down due to the island nation’s worst economic crisis, to resign.

Later that day, furious agitators laid siege to Temple Trees, the official residence of the prime minister of Sri Lanka, forcing the military to intervene and whisk Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family away to safety.

With no government in place, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, last Thursday, appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe as the prime minister, which marked the latter’s record sixth stint in the position. In a national address on May 16, Wickremesinghe said, among other things, that the country’s economy was in a ‘precarious condition’ and that the nation of 22 million inhabitants was ‘currently out of petrol.’