Colombo : The Sri Lankan government on Wednesday denied any involvement in the move to question former president Mahinda Rajapakse on bribery allegations.
Deputy Foreign Minister Ajith Perera told journalists here that the decision to question Rajapakse was taken solely by the country’s independent anti-graft agency, the Commission to Investigate Allegation of Bribery or Corruption.
“The government had never wanted to order such a probe because such a move was politically not advisable at this moment,” Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying. “If this move had political connections then it would have been carried out much earlier or would have been put off for later.”
There was uproar in the Sri Lankan parliament on Monday and Tuesday over the summons issued on the former president by commission director general Dilrukshi Dias Wickremesinghe over an allegation that Rajapakse had bribed a member of the ruling United National Party with a ministerial post.
Opposition parliamentarians alleged that the government had resorted to political harassment against the former president who is largely responsible for the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels in the island nation.