Arrest warrant issued against Uvatenne Thera

The Colombo Fort Magistrate today issued a warrant for the arrest of Ven. Uvatenne Sumana Thera for not being present in Court in connection with an alleged defrauding of a businessman of Rs.3 million on the promise of providing him with a plot of land in Madampe.

At a previous occasion Defence Counsel for Ven. Thera had informed Court his client had already paid an amount of Rs.300,000 and would pay the rest of the amount (Rs.2.7 million) within a period of one-and-a-half years. Accordingly, the Ven. Thera had paid several monthly installments. However, when the case was taken up before Magistrate Ms. Lanka Jayaratne for paying a monthly installment, the Ven. Thera was not present in Court and thereby the Magistrate issued an arrest warrant against him.

Giving evidence regarding the matter, the complainant L. K. de Silva Wijeratne had told Court he paid an advance of Rs.3 million to the monk opposite the Presidential Secretariat Office at Galle Face on August 16, 2007 in order to buy a plot of land in Madampe.

The complainant had further said the monk failed to fulfill his promise of providing the land and agreed to repay the amount advanced to him.  He had further told Court that the cheques issued to the businessman by the monk to repay money had bounced. The businessman had subsequently lodged a complaint with the Colombo Fraud Investigations Bureau.

The suspect monk was initially arrested and later released on bail. (By Lakmal Sooriyagoda)