Ex-President Sirisena blames own govt. for thwarting extradition of Mahendran

COLOMBO (News1st): Sri Lanka's former President Maithripala Sirisena has blamed certain factions of his government for thwarting attempts to extradite former central bank chief Arjuna Mahendran, the main suspect in a massive treasury bond scam. "The government sent a letter to the INTERPOL (to extradite Mahendran). However, some members of our government wrote to the INTERPOL stating that this is not about financial fraud, but a political dispute," Sirisena told reporters on Wednesday. "The INTERPOL then informed us that they would not intervene as they had received a letter to this effect". Mahendran is wanted over a treasury bond scam that occurred during his term as central bank governor in 2015 and has been avoiding arrest since then. The former President said the government had sent several documents to the INTERPOL, including details of investigations into the case, in another attempt to arrest and extradite the chief suspect. "It was only then that the INTERPOL had issued a red notice for the arrest of Arjuna Mahendran," Sirisena said. The former President recently revealed that he had signed 21,000 documents that had been sent to the Attorney General's office in Singapore, as part of efforts to bring down the suspect.