Court orders Weerawansa to pay legal costs

Sandasen Marasinghe

Colombo District Judge Sisira Ratnayake yesterday ordered Member of Parliament Wimal Weerawansa to pay legal cost of Rs. 15,000 to retired Major General Wasantha Perera who filed a defamation case against Weerawansa.

The Court ordered Weerawansa to pay the legal cost for not informing the plaintiff of changing the Defence Counsel on time. The plaintiff's Counsel informed Court that Defence Counsel had been changed and the motion with that regard had filed only on May 26.

Retired Major General Wasantha Perera filed the case stating that a comment by Wimal Weerawansa in the Television Programme "Visanwadaya" on February 9, 2004 was defamatory to the petitioner and claimed Rs. 50 million as compensation.