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Judge cancels order to seal Ratwattes CD vaults

by Sarath Malalasekera

The Colombo Fort Magistrate and Additional District Judge Priyantha Fernando yesterday cancelled the order made by him on August 29 to seal two vaults-1008 and 278- at a private bank containing Certificates of Deposits, belonging to former Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte and his wife Ramani. This was due to there being no application made by the Bribery and Corruption Investigations Department in respect of the CDs to Court.

The Judge observed that the court has granted sufficient time to the Bribery and Corruption Investigations Department to obtain an order in respect of the CDs retained by a court order. But up to yesterday they had not made any application to court to obtain an order in respect of the CDs.

The Judge also observed that the Bribery and Corruption Investigation Department could not say that they were not aware of the court order as they have obtained a certified copy of the court order on September 10.

The CID has told court that these CDs are not wanted in any of the criminal cases. Therefore, the court has no power to retain the CDs further. But court has a duty to assist in the investigations commenced by the Bribery and Corruption Investigations Department, therefore the order made earlier to seal the two bank vaults is cancelled.

The CID filing a further report yesterday told court that the Bribery and Corruption Investigations Department had informed the CID, that they have asked the bank concerned to open the two vaults on September 25 in the presence of the Ratwattes and handover the CDs to the Bribery and Corruption Investigations Department for further investigations.

On the last date the CID informed court that they have handed over the dossier of the investigations into the Rs.43.3 million of CDs to the Bribery and Corruption Investigations Department for further investigations. Denzil Gunaratne with Buddhika Jayasinghe watched the interest of the Ratwattes.

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