12 March 2023 09:52 am
Two officers of the Immigration Department have been suspended after former Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage was prevented from travelling abroad at Katunayake Airport citing a travel ban.
The former minister arrived at the BIA on Friday night to leave the country on a personnel visit, but was stopped from proceeding through by the immigration officers stating there is a foreign travel ban imposed by the Matugama court.
Accordingly, Aluthgamage has cancelled his foreign trip. However, the MP informed them that no such case or foreign travel ban has been imposed against him by the Matugama court.
The former minister had informed the matter to the Controller General of Immigration and found that incident had occurred due to an error in the data system.
He informed the former minister that he would be granted permission to travel abroad after rectifying the error in the system.
The controller general said an investigation will be conducted on Monday on this and two Immigration officials who were on duty at the time were suspended pending investigations.
Aluthgamage was previously banned from traveling abroad by the Colombo High Court, but he took steps to lift the relevant ban after presenting the facts to the court. (DSB)