Concept

Rishad Bathiudeen

Summary
Rishad Bathiudeen is a Sri Lankan parliamentarian and former senior cabinet minister. He is the leader of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC) Party, a registered political party in Sri Lanka. Bathiudeen was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) from the Vanni Electoral District in December 2001 and was re-elected in April 2004, after which he was again re-elected in April 2010 and 2015 June from the same Electoral District which comprises Vavuniya, Mannar and Mullathivu Administrative Districts. Rishad Bathiudeen holds a National Diploma in Technology (NDT) in Civil Engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Engineering (C.I.E.) in the UK. On 19 October 2020, he was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department during a raid in Dehiwela, where he is charged with criminal misappropriation of public funds, and violation of election laws with regard to the transportation of IDPs in government-owned SLTB buses to vote at the 2019 presidential election. Environmental organizations filed a writ application in court against the illegal clearing of the Kallaru Forest Reserve and the construction of a housing project, which is adjacent to the Wilpattu National Park. The Court of Appeal upheld the view that it was illegal to cut down trees and construct houses in a protected forest reserve and held the Minister responsible, Bathuideen, accountable to the damage by exercising the 'Polluter Pays Principle' under Environmental law. Bathuideen was hence ordered to bear the full cost, which is over Rs. 1 billion, to reforest the Kallaru Reserve. In the aftermath of the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings Bathiudeen was accused of having ties with the bombers and interfering with the investigations in an attempt to release arrested suspects. According to the Army Commander Mahesh Senanayake, Bathiudeen called him three times first to confirm if a person was arrested and after ignoring him twice the commander confirmed that the person was arrested.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.