{"id":94335,"date":"2019-10-26T10:51:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-26T17:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=94335"},"modified":"2019-10-26T10:51:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-26T17:51:15","slug":"fcid-couldnt-work-independently-due-to-political-pressurization-ex-chief-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/26\/fcid-couldnt-work-independently-due-to-political-pressurization-ex-chief-reveals\/","title":{"rendered":"FCID couldn\u2019t work independently due to political pressurization, ex-chief reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Adaderana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) could not function independently as expected due to the pressure from the high-profile politicians from the governing party, the former head of the FCID Senior DIG (retired) Ravi Waidyalankara claimed today (25).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He further said the FCID\u2019s investigations were only aimed at a certain group from the previous government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Responding to questions raised, Mr. Waidyalankara said the FCID could have achieved greater success had there been room for the Division to work independently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"FCID \u0dc4\u0dd2\u0da7\u0db4\u0dd4 \u0db1\u0dd2\u0dbd\u0db0\u0dcf\u0dbb\u0dd2\u0dba\u0dcf\u0d9c\u0dd9\u0db1\u0dca \u0d86\u0db1\u0dca\u0daf\u0ddd\u0dbd\u0db1\u0dcf\u0dad\u0dca\u0db8\u0d9a \u0dc4\u0dd9\u0dc5\u0dd2\u0daf\u0dbb\u0dc0\u0dca\u0dc0\u0d9a\u0dca\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-9mmAlcnUko?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Stressing that the FCID clearly had political pressurization, Mr. Waidyalankara commented that the FCID only investigated the complaints referred by the Anti-Corruption Committee. These complaints were all against the former government, the former FCID chief said further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This proves that the investigations were only focused on a specific group of persons, Waidyalankara stressed, adding that most of the serious complaints received by the FCID were against the Rajapaksas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Waidyalankara claims that President\u2019s Counsel J.C. Weliamuna, who headed the Anti-Corruption Committee at the time&#8211; which consisted of Minister Rajitha Senaratne, MP Sarath Fonseka, Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka, Minister Malik Samarawickrama&#8211; had pressurized the FCID to expedite the investigations and file cases on the complaints directed by the Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When asked if MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake was also a committee member, Mr. Waidyalankara said he is not aware of that, but he pointed out that those who had a keen interest in these investigations were a part of this Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He added that the FCID attempted to investigate if there had been any incidents of corruption through MiG deal and make Gotabaya Rajapaksa a suspect of it. Since a person cannot be falsely made a suspect of a case if there is no evidence, I did not allow it,\u201d former FCID chief commented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Adaderana Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) could not function independently as expected due to the pressure from the high-profile politicians from the governing party, the former head of the FCID Senior DIG (retired) Ravi Waidyalankara claimed today (25). He further said the FCID\u2019s investigations were only aimed at a certain group from the previous [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,6,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption-and-bribery","category-politics","category-106"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}