Shashi uses DPL Passport for six visits abroad

23 February 2015 09:12 pm

Former Minister Wimal Weerawansa’s wife Shashi now in the centre of a major controversy on the basis of having obtained a diplomatic passport by using fraudulent documents had reportedly travelled overseas on six different occasions since September 2010, informed sources said.


Ms. Weerawansa, whose DPL passport D3642817 issued on September 13, 2010 under the name of Randunu Mudiyanselage Shehasha Udayanthi Ranasinghe, had made her first trip using this passport to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on September 22 on SriLankan airlines flight UL 316.


She had then visited Dubai on April 10, 2011 aboard Emirates Airlines flight EK 651 on a seven-day tour; again visited Dubai on May 21, 2011 on Emirates flight EK 651 and returned to the Island on May 24.


The same year she visited Mumbai, India on October 20 on flight UL 141 and returned the following day.


Informed sources said last year she had been abroad on two occasions – on April 14 to Singapore on Emirates flight EK 349 and returned on April 17 and on June 25 to an undisclosed destination on SriLankan airlines flight UL 001… believed to have been chartered by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. They said this was the final trip she had made using her DPL passport and returned to the country on June 30.


When contacted, a senior official at the Department of Immigration and Emigration told Daily Mirror that it was a serious offence to obtain a travel document by submitting fraudulent documents under the Section 45 of Immigration and Emigration Act No.20 of 1948 (Amended).


The normal passport N1284124, which was issued on May 24, 2004 had her name as Sheerja Udayanthi Weerawansa. (Kevin Kariyawasam)