Anura Daniel who was the Deputy minister of the government and member of the parliament for Hewaheta constituency when J R Jayawardene, uncle of president Ranil Rajapaksha (Wickramasinghe) was the president of the country was caught at the airport while returning to the country with a load of gold bars. Members of the parliament and ministers leave and return to the airport via the VIP gate. The custom doesn’t check the passengers who enter or leave this gate. Some time ago a deputy minister who was in the government brought heroine with his son through the VIP gate. You can even write a book about the illegal actions which were made into effect through this gate. The thing is that the custom has never caught hold of these crimes.
Member of the parliament Ali Sabri is the second person to be caught in such a racket after Anura Daniel. The value of the gold bars is more than seven crores and forty lakhs. The value of the smartphones which were caught has a value of seventy one million. The total value of all these items adds up to 78.2 million as reported.
So far, Ali Sabri Raheem has paid the fine and has been released. It is said that the goods he brought were confiscated. But the people have been questioning why he hasn’t been arrested. The deputy minister of finance, who made a statement about it in the parliament today, said that after paying the fines he was released according to the Customs act.
However, MP Madduma Bandara stated in the parliament that there is a doubt about the fine imposed on MP Ali Sabri. We know how this happened. President’s secretary Anura Ekenayake has called the Custom head to impose the lowest possible fine on MP Ali Sabri. We can see that the president’s secretary has made such a phone call under the orders of president Ranil Rajapaksha or chief of the president’s staff, Sagala Ratnayake.
Most of the Custom officials show all the violent parts to the people who pass through the airport’s normal entrance but there is a fear and backwardness towards the VIP passengers. To be honest there are some custom officials who do their job correctly without fear towards the VIP passengers and they are remembered with high respect.
When Deputy minister Anura Daniel was caught with the gold bars, president JR Jayawardene removed him from the council and held an election for the Hewaheta seat. But in that election the UNP candidate was Sriyani Daniel, the elder sister of Anura Daniel who was caught with the gold bars. In that election she was elected to the parliament by the highest number of votes. We must also not forget that the ancestors of those who are struggling in protests voted for her back then.
We shouldn’t dream about an end of Ali Sabri’s political road. Needless to say that smuggling will happen from the VIP gate tomorrow as well. Deputy minister Arundika Fernando brings a load of illegal stuff everytime he arrives. So in the same way there are a lot of parliament brothers and godfathers who will never get caught in smuggling.
Today, the Minuwangoda magistrate sentenced a father of two children to two years in prison and suspended it to ten years for allegedly stealing 1200 coconuts.
It would be good if the people of this country would think again about the cowardice of the law in the case of a theft of 1200 coconuts and a serious fraud of about 78 million.
We would also like to disclose that Aruna, the son of Anura Daniel’s sister (who was caught bringing gold bars during the time of president JR Jayawardene) is the organizer of Samagi Jana balawege in Kandy.
We can imagine how president Ranil Rajapaksha’s uncle was ashamed to know that one of his MP’s was involved in a fraud. But we can see from Ali Sabri’s small fine that neither the president, Ranil Rajapaksha nor the speaker if the parliament has such a conscience.
Gold smuggler, Ali Sabri was released by a small fine as ordered by the president’s secretary.
