Shashi Weerawansa sentenced to two years of imprisonment over passport fraud

Colombo Chief Magistrate's Court today imposed two-years-rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 100,000 on Shashi Weerawansa, wife of National Freedom Front (NFF) Leader and former Minister Wimal Weerawansa for obtaining a passport fraudulently.

Earlier Criminal Investigations Department (CID) informed the Court that Ms Weerawansa provided false information to obtain two different passports.

The court was told that she had obtained a normal passport and a diplomatic passport under different names.

Usually, a person possessing a second passport should mention the number of the previous passport, but in this case, there was no mention of the first passport, Court was informed. 

In the first passport obtained in 2004, she had mentioned the date of birth as 1967-02-01 under the name Shirja Udayanthi Weerawansa under the identity card number 675320233 V while in the second passport (diplomatic) obtained in 2010 she has given her name as Shehasa Udayanthi Ranasinghe with the birthday as 1971-02-03 and identity card number as 715344696 V.

Challenging the Court verdict, lawyers representing Ms Weerawansa have submitted an appeal against the court decision.