Ranil Wickremesinghe Rejects Batalanda Commission Report, Dismisses Allegations as Irrelevant

COLOMBO (News 1st): Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that none of the allegations presented against him in the Batalanda Commission report are relevant to him.

The decision in the report states that it was wrong to give houses to police officers through the Superintendent of Police. The proper procedure, according to the report, should have been to hand over the houses to the Inspector General of Police, who would then allocate them among his officers. The Commission report also mentions that because of this, Nalin Delgoda and others were indirectly responsible.

However, Ranil Wickremesinghe clarified that none of the other facts mentioned in the Commission report are relevant to him. He pointed out that the report includes observations about acts of terrorism committed by the JVP between 1988 and 1990, as well as the background of these incidents. Chapter three of the report speaks at length about the terrorism perpetrated by the JVP, detailing past incidents.

Ranil Wickremesinghe emphasized that apart from these points, none of the other accusations were relevant to him. He completely rejected the report.

He also added that no political party that came into power has attempted to use this report for political gain. 

He said that there is no tradition of debating a report that was on the agenda of parliament 25 years ago, stating that such a precedent is not seen in Sri Lanka or anywhere in the world.