To join Fonseka’s Deveni Meheyuma:

MP offered Rs 30 m

*Attempt to destabilize country with assistance of foreign powers

*Given offer to stay abroad and live luxurious life

*Audio and video evidence on transaction

Ishara MUDUGAMUWA

National Freedom Front Member of Parliament Mohamed Muzzamil producing several bundles of thousand rupee notes at a press conference yesterday said it was part of a bribe offered to him by a Muslim Member of Parliament to join the DNF presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka’s election campaign.

Addressing a press conference at the National Freedom Front head office, Battaramulla, he said he was given on offer to stay abroad and live a luxurious life and was also told that he would be given thirty million rupees.

He was asked to attend a press conference at the campaign of Sarath Fonseka after he was given the advance, he said.

He did not count yet the advance which was to be one million rupees, he added. The transaction was discussed with UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, UNP’s Malik Samarawickrema, Ravi Karunanayake and SLFP (M) member Mangala Samaraweera, he said.

“I decided to take the money to expose the hoax of eradicating bribery and corruption put on by Sarath Fonseka and I attended his press conference where too I told the media about the bribe offered to me and accepted by me deliberately to expose the hoax. These funds had come from a foreign Embassy to buy parliamentarians for the Fonseka camp.

“They want to destabilize the country once again with the assistance of foreign powers and their promise of eradicating bribery and corruption is a total hoax as could be seen from this bribe offered to me.

“I will be reporting this bribe to the Bribery Commissioner tomorrow,” he also said.

Muzammil showed his camera phone with the audio and visual evidence of the bribe given to him and said he would release the compact discs of the recordings to the authorities and the public.

According to Muzammil, the transaction had taken place at a hotel in Wellawatte where the a fore-mentioned MP and a representative of the foreign embassy had handed over the cash.

National Freedom Front leader Wimal Weerawansa said the entire effort of the Fonseka camp was corrupt and not clean as they pretended.

If a bribe of thirty million rupees was offered to a member of Parliament how much more would they offer to other party leaders.

Foreign embassies and anti-national elements who were behind the UNP and the other anti-national forces in the Sarath Fonseka camp were once again trying to destabilize the country for their own personal gains and destroy the peace achieved with supreme sacrifices of the armed forces and the people.