Former minister and Rajapaksa ally Lohan Ratwatte launched an attack on Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake, stating that the president and his allies “must be hanged” for their role in the JVP insurrection of the 1980s.
Speaking at an SLPP event ahead of local government elections, Ratwatte lashed out at the president for the recent wave of arrests targeting opposition politicians and their spouses, including his own. “Not only did you put me and my wife behind bars, but now another former Chief Minister and the wife of a former minister have also been remanded,” he said.
“We will support you if you are doing good for the nation,” Ratwatte declared. “If not, we will also have to take alternative steps. You can put me behind bars as many times as you want. But if you touch my wife, I know what I will do.”
He continued by referencing the armed uprising of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), stating: “The President and his associates must be hanged for the crimes committed during the JVP riots.”
In September 2021 Ratwatte stormed into the Anuradhapura prison and forces Tamil political prisoners to kneel at gunpoint. The then prisons minister, who was inebriated at the time, questioned the Tamil political prisoners if they had killed any soldiers during the war. He went on to point his gun at the inmates accusing them of complaining to the UN, adding that the president Gotabaya Rajapaksa had empowered him to release or kill the inmates.
In 2022, the bodyguard of the former convict turned Sri Lankan minister, turned his pistol on a barking pet dog that approached the minister in Jaffna, killing the animal.
Ratwatte himself has a history of mass murder and irresponsible behaviour with firearms. He led the killing of ten unarmed Muslims during the 2001 general elections for which he was convicted and sentenced by the high court. He was later acquitted on flimsy grounds.
In late December 2020, he terrified hotel guests in Kandy by firing gunshots into the air, reportedly due to anger.
In 2024, he was appointed the State Minister for Plantation Industries and Mahaweli Development, by then president Ranil Wickremesinghe.
