Sri Lanka’s former President Ranil Wickremesinghe is escorted by prison and police officials as he leaves the Magistrate’s Court in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on August 23, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Sri Lanka’s former President Ranil Wickremesinghe was on Saturday [August 23, 2025] sent to the National Hospital from Colombo’s Magazine Prison, a day after he was arrested on charges of misusing public funds.
He was “severely dehydrated” and shifted to the ICU, the hospital told news agency AFP.
Mr. Wickremesinghe, 76, was remanded in custody after the Colombo Magistrate Court refused to grant him bail on Friday in a case of alleged misuse of state funds [LKR 16.6 million or roughly $55,000] for a private visit to the United Kingdom in September 2023, when he was in office. He was sent to the prison hospital on Saturday, reportedly owing to high blood pressure and his diabetes condition that needed medical attention. “He has been transferred to the National Hospital [Colombo’s main government hospital] this [Saturday] afternoon, following advice from the prisons medical board,” Prisons Department spokesperson Jagath Weerasinghe told The Hindu.
Also Read : Sri Lanka Supreme Court says Ranil Wickremesinghe guilty of ‘arbitrary and unlawful’ conduct
On Saturday (August 23, 2025), members of the political Opposition, including former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa, visited Mr. Wickremesinghe. Speaking to reporters, Mr. Rajapaksa said: “He [Mr. Wickremesinghe] was in good spirits…he understands this is part of politics.”
Nalin Bandara, a parliamentarian from the main opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB or or United People’s Power), who also visited Mr. Wickremesinghe told local media that the former President called for Opposition parties to get onto a “common stage” to fight the government, news agency AFP reported.
Mr. Wickremesinghe’s arrest is the latest and the most high-profile case in the government’s ongoing crackdown on corruption so far. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake rose to the country’s top office in September 2024, winning chiefly on an anti-corruption plank. His National People’s Power [NPP] coalition enjoys a two-thirds majority in Parliament, after it secured a huge mandate in the general election in November last year.
The United National Party (UNP), which Mr. Wickremesinghe leads, has said that the government felt “threatened” by the seasoned politician, who has served as Prime Minister six times and as President from July 2022 to September 2024, after citizens ousted former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. “They fear he might return to power, and that is why this action,” UNP General Secretary Thalatha Athukorala told reporters in Colombo. The UNP currently has one seat in the 225-member Parliament, in addition to two allies. Mr. Premadasa’s SJB, created after a split within the UNP, has 40 MPs.
The Colombo Magistrate Court is due to hear Mr. Wickremesinghe’s case on August 26, 2025.
Published – August 23, 2025 02:32 pm IST