COLOMBO: Former Health Minister in the Rajapaksa government, Tissa Attanayake, was on Monday remanded to judicial custody till February 11 on a complaint by Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe that he had forged and publicized a document to show that they had entered into a “anti-national” agreement with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in the run up to the January 8 Sri Lankan Presidential election.
Attanayake, who had defected from Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) during the election campaign and joined the Rajapaksa government as Health Minister, had charged that Sirisena and Wickremesinghe had agreed to virtually divide Lanka on ethnic lines in order to get the support of the TNA. He produced a copy of the “agreement” purportedly signed on November 1, 2014.
On December 25, Sirisena and Wickremesinghe denied that any such “agreement” was signed and said that Tissanayake had forged their signatures. They also sent a letter of demand for LKR 2.5 billion as damages.
The case, which had remained dormant till President Mahinda Rajapaksa was in power, was revived after his exit on January 9.