Sri Lanka Cricket’s chief financial officer remanded in police custody

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka Cricket’s (SLC) chief financial officer Wimal Nandika Dissanayake was remanded in custody until Nov. 1 for suspected financial misappropriation linked with awarding telecast rights to Sony TV, police said on Tuesday.

The ruling comes as the International Cricket Council (ICC) continues to investigate corruption allegations in SLC.

Dissanayake was arrested on Monday after the SLC’s Chief Executive Officer, Ashley de Silva, lodged a complaint to the police over financial fraud.

In a written statement to the police, De Silva said that during the team’s last South African tour, Dissanayake had asked Sony TV “to deposit 15 percent of the television rights fees to a private account in America”.

More than $187,000 had been misappropriated on the South African tour, a police spokesman said on Monday.

De Silva said he was alerted to the situation after a top Sony official contacted him to verify an email from Dissanayake, which asked Sony to transfer more television rights fees into the same account, a source who is aware of the investigation told Reuters.

Dissanayake’s lawyers and Sony representatives were not immediately available for comment.

The SLC has been hit by a number of controversies in recent months, including match-fixing. Several current and past players are being investigated by the ICC, sources privy to the investigation told Reuters.

The country’s Sports Minister, Faizer Mustapha, has left for Dubai to attend a three-day meeting with the ICC on the issue, sources at the ministry said.

Last week, Sri Lanka’s former captain and selector Sanath Jayasuriya was charged with two counts of breaching the ICC’s anti-corruption code. He has denied any wrongdoing.

SLC officials have said they will be giving their full support to the anti-corruption team in its investigation.

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