A retired officer from the CID has expressed doubts whether the President had appointed Lakshman Hulugalle, who has been fund guilty of financial fraud, to the board of the Commercial Bank in order to retrieve financial secrets of the bank.

Hulugalle when being interrogated by the CID about 80,000 Sterling Pounds given by Ravi Wettasinghe to the SLFP Fund, he had said that Rs. 50 lakhs of the monies had been given to then Fisheries Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Hulugalle has added that another sum of Rs. 15 lakhs from the monies given by Wettasinghe was given to Minister A.H.M. Fowzie. It is therefore evident that Mahinda Rajapaksa has been involved in Hulugalle’s financial frauds.

Hence, there are doubts over the President’s move to appoint Hulugalle to the Commercial Bank board.

Mahinda Rajapaksa and Mangala Samaraweera put pressure on the CID not to take Hulugalle into custody during the controversial Channel 9 case. The retired CID officer said that The Sunday Times newspaper had revealed details of the case at the time.

When the media at the time questioned Minster Mahinda Rajapaksa about the Rs. 50 lakhs given by Hulugalle, he had said that the monies were spent during the infamous 1999 Wayamba Provincial Council election.

However, it is learnt that Mahinda Rajapaksa did not play a key role in the election campaign and that he was assigned only one electoral division in the province.