CONTRAVERSIAL CEYLINCO INSURANCE FAILED TO PAY THEIR POLICY CHARGES SRI LANKA CRICKET IN A FILED COURT CASE

By Walter Jayawardhana

Sri lanka Cricket has charged that they have been denied a 12 million dollar insurance claim by Colombo’s Ceylinco insurance company under a policy they purchased from the company for match cancellation due to a terrorist threat when South African cricket team abandoned a match and flew home following a bomb blast in Colombo.

Ceylinco insurance, headed by controversial businessman and Catholic who advertised during the last Presidential election appealing to Catholics not to vote for President Rajapaksa on lines of religions once again came to limelight when he called Tamil Tigers who practice terrorism as freedom fighters in a newspaper interview.

It is merely an interesting co-incident that another controversy regarding terrorism is affecting his insurance company.

Sri lanka Cricket, the island’s cricket authority in a case filed in Colombo’s Commercial high Court has charged although the South African cricket team decided to fly home after a bomb exploded targeting the then Pakistani High Commissioner in Colombo Bashir Ali Mohamed the Ceylinco Insurance Company denied to pay their cancellation protection policy due to terrorism. The policy was worth 12 million dollars.

The plaint said the cancellation occurred following the blast claimed to have been caused by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by the government of Sri Lanka just close to the hotel the South African team was staying. Pakistan has charged that the blast was a terrorist act caused by India’s RAW intelligence service to cause death to the Pakistani envoy in Colombo, who had been heavily involved in Pakistani espionage services.

Sri Lanka Cricket bought the policy just before the three days series was started in which India –South Africa and the host Sri Lanka were to take part covering for 11.9 million dollars.Before the blast South Africa had played two matches in Sri Lanka , out side the series.

Although the Pakistani envoy was unhurt in the blast, four of his Sri Lanka Army guards were killed in the terrorist act..

In defense Ceylinco Insurance told a news agency that the first two days of the series were cancelled due to bad weather and since bad weather cancellations were not covered under the policy the nearly 12 million claims could not be paid.