Muzamil goes to bribery commission

By Jatila Karawita

MP Mohamad Muzamil who made a startling revelation last Friday (Jan 15), of an alleged bribe being offered by the Opposition to buy him over handing him rupees 30 million, is set to go before the Bribery Commission to bring the matter to their notice officially, said a spokesman of the media unit of the National Freedom Front (NFF) Jathika Nidahas Peramuna..
The NFF media unit spokesman speaking to LAKBIMAnEWS stated that MP Mohamad Muzamil -- having already revealed at a news conference the alleged money drama set in motion by UNP National List MP Myown Mustapha - did not wish to speak to the media anymore.
But, MP Muzamil’s next probable course of action would be to lodge an official complaint with the Bribery Commissioner during the course of this week, the NFF media unit added.
Issuing a media release yesterday (Jan 16) the NFF noted that its MP and Media Spokesman Mohamad Muzamil had been allegedly coaxed into crossing over by such politicians as UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe, Co-media Spokesman of the opposition presidential candidate and SLFP M wing MP Mangala Samaraweera, UNP MP Ravi Karunanayake and former UNP Chairman Malik Samarawickrema.
NFF MP and its Media Spokesman Mohamad Muzamil last Friday (Jan 26) alleged UNP
National List MP Myown Mustapha had offered him wads of money to publicly defame his party leader Wimal Weerawansa MP, and help Common presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka to win the forthcoming polls.
Speaking at a news conference on the same day MP Muzamil said that UNP National List MP Myown Mustapha - on behalf of the opposition presidential candidate had requested him to clear General Fonseka of alleged corruption charges relating to the procurement of arms and equipment by the HiCorp and a secret deal struck with the LTTE proxy Tamil National Alliance (TNA) recently.
MP Muzamil disclosed to the media that he had apparently met MP Mustapha at Hotel Sapphire, Wellawatte where he had received the money to switch allegiance to the Opposition polls campaign.
He further stated at the press conference that he had accepted several bundles of thousand rupee notes in a bid to expose General Sarath Fonseka’s deplorable and despicable conspiracy to allegedly buy MPs from parties backing President Mahinda Rajapaksa - something he termed as ‘unprecedented’ during a presidential election campaign.
The National Freedom Front MP added that he had been first approached by MP Mustapha in Parliament and that he had met with several Opposition heavyweights on Thursday night (Jan 14) and the following day had met with MP Mustapha and another person at Room No 205 of Hotel Sapphire where he had allegedly received the money to cross over.
He said that from there he and MP Mustapha had proceeded to General Fonseka’s political office before the former had fled the premises carrying the bag containing several bundles of money.

Another farcical drama

- UNP media spokesman

UNP MP for Galle District and Media spokesman Gayantha Karunathileke at the outset affirmed that both handing a bribe and receiving one at the same time were punishable grave offences according to the law, hence MP Muzamil’s action cannot go unnoticed as he had publicly displayed having received wads of money due to this particular incident, at a news conference. MP Karunathileke added that the bankrupt UPFA which had gone batty over the imminent defeat of President Mahinda Rajapaksa were in the process of stooping to any low level to sling mud at General Sarath Fonseka and this was one such episode of another farcical drama enacted by Wimal Weerawansa of the NFF -- which is one of the constituent parties of the government.
He stressed that the UNP would shortly inform the public of future action to be taken in this regard by the main Opposition party backing the common presidential candidate. Efforts to contact UNP MP Ravi Karunanayake in this regard proved futile as he was on the election campaign trail yesterday.