Man arrested for stealing liquor bottle from Sri Lankan President Wickremesinghe’s private residence remanded in custody

A man who was arrested for stealing a foreign liquor bottle from the private residence of Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe during a popular uprising against the Rajapaksa government in July was remanded in judicial custody, according to a media report on Tuesday.

A man who was arrested for stealing a foreign liquor bottle from the private residence of Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe during a popular uprising against the Rajapaksa government in July was remanded in judicial custody, according to a media report on Tuesday. On July 9, anti-government protesters set Wickremesinghe’s private residence at Cambridge Place on fire and occupied key public buildings, including the Presidential Palace. Wickremesinghe was the prime minister when anti-government protesters attacked his private residence. A man who was arrested by Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department for stealing a foreign liquor bottle Wickremesinghe’s residence in July was remanded in judicial custody till Wednesday by the Colombo Magistrate’s Court, according to news portal hirunews.lk. Wickremesinghe has said that much of the contents in his private residence were not salvageable, with extensive destruction to his 125-year-old piano and more than 4,000 books gutted. Meanwhile, the estimated damages to the Galle Face Green, the lush 12-acre ocean-side urban park in Colombo, due to the ‘Aragalaya’ protests amounted to LKR 4.9 million, news portal dailynews.lk reported on Tuesday, citing a report by the Urban Development Authority. “Aragalaya” in Sinhalese means “struggle”, and was used to describe the protests at Colombo’s Galle Face Green that began demanding the ouster of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa over his government’s mishandling of the country’s economy. Wickremesinghe was elected Sri Lanka's eighth president last month after his predecessor Rajapaksa fled the country over a massive public uprising against him and his family.