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Sri Lankan gov't opposes speaker's move to summon anti-graft body chief

Xinhua, April 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Sri Lankan government said on Tuesday that the decision to summon the country's anti-bribery and corruption commissioner to parliament for an explanation over her move to summon the former president over bribery allegations was " unacceptable."

Deputy Foreign Minister Ajith Perera told reporters that the decision by the parliament speaker to summon the commission chief was completely unacceptable as the anti-graft body functioned independently.

Speaker Chamal Rajapakse, who is also a brother of former president Mahinda Rajapakse, summoned Director General of the commission Dilrukshi Dias Wickremasinghe to the parliament on Monday after a group of opposition parliamentarians staged a protest in the parliament over Rajapakse's bribery allegations.

The protest continued overnight with over 70 parliamentarians refusing to leave the parliament building.

Speaker Rajapakse said in a statement that the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption has to inform him before it summons a member of parliament to the commission to record a statement.

Meanwhile, former president Rajapakse, who has been summoned before the commission on Friday, will not appear to make a statement as the summons did not give a reason, his spokesman Rohan Weliwita told Xinhua.

Weliwita said despite media reports that Rajapakse had been summoned over allegations that he had bribed a former member of the ruling United National Party to join him before the January presidential elections by offering him a ministerial post, such a move was not illegal as he was the president at that time.

Meanwhile, 113 opposition parliamentarians, all supporters of Rajapakse, signed a petition on Tuesday against the commission chief Wickremasinghe.

The parliamentarians complained that the commission had overstepped its mandate by summoning the former president and his brother, Gotabaya Rajapakse who was also the defense secretary during Rajapakse's decade-long tenure in office.

Gotabaya Rajapakse has been summoned to appear before the commission on Wednesday. Endi