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Sri Lanka paid an estimated US $6.5 million to a major fundraiser to the Obama campaign in order to lobby US officials and is yet to finish making payments, reports Foreign Policy.

According to the paper’s investigation, the Sri Lankan government over a five month period in 2014 paid $6.5 million to Imaad Zuberi, a venture capitalist whp was one of the biggest contributors to Obama’s re-election campaign.

A document obtained by Foreign Policy found that a lobby firm owned by Mr Zuberi was paid $2 million by the Sri Lankan government for consulting services which included influencing the US government.

The transactions have come under scrutiny after it was found that payments to Mr Zuberi were not disclosed to the US Justice Department as required under federal law. The Foreign Agents Registration Act of FARA states that paid representatives of foreign governments must disclose those relationships to the Justice Department and carries a punishment of up to 5 years in prison.

Through Mr Zuberi, Sri Lanka “made hundreds of contacts with government officials, think tanks, and journalists, and arranged meetings on Capitol Hill”. One such meeting was on July 14 2014, when former Sri Lankan MP Vass Gunawardena and 14 other Sri Lankan officials, spent thousands of dollars on food and drinks for members of Congress in Washington DC.

Mr Zuberi however denied he worked for individuals, telling FP, “Our work was for the government of Sri Lanka… not Mr Vass Gunawardena as a person”.

He also rejected allegations of corruption within the then Sri Lankan government, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa. “Perhaps we were lucky that we didn’t encounter corruption,” said Mr Zuberi. “But we only explored opportunities and didn’t really make any investment.”

The British High Commission in Sri Lanka stated the UK was still fully committed to the UN process, including the upcoming report on mass atrocities on the island, yet called on the Sri Lankan government “to make progress domestically”.

In response to a query from The Island a spokesperson for the High Commission said:

"The UK remains fully committed to the UN process, including the OHCHR investigation and the publication of its report in September. It will then be for the government of Sri Lanka to demonstrate what progress it has made towards reconciliation and accountability, and how it will take forward the recommendations of the OHCHR report.”

The spokesperson went on to say:

“We have consistently called for Sri Lanka to make progress domestically. It is important that any accountability process is credible, inclusive, transparent, independent and meets international standards."

The Tamil National Alliance has laid claim to the leader of the opposition post, in Sri Lanka's parliament.

In a statement published on Saturday, the TNA said as the party with the second-highest number of seats, the UPFA, has decided to form a national government with the UNP, it is not anymore an opposition party and as such the TNA is now the largest opposition party.

"It has been announced that a National Government has been formed and that Members of Parliament who contested and were elected under both the UNP and the UPFA have accepted cabinet portfolios. Accordingly, both the UNP and the UPFA bear collective cabinet responsibility. As political parties in Parliament, they thus must publicly support all Governmental decisions made in Cabinet. This support includes voting with the Government when sitting in Parliament. There is thus no question whatsoever of the UPFA sitting in opposition in Parliament," the statement said.

A newly elected parliamentarian with the ruling UNP government has ignored three consecutive summons to appear before a magistrates court for threatening a police sergeant, The Island reports.

Any investigation by Sri Lanka into mass atrocities committed at the end of the armed conflict must be credible to the international community and must have some degree of international involvement, said the US assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, Tom Malinowski, speaking to journalists in Trincomalee on Thursday.  

Elaborating on yesterday's statement by the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs that the US would work with Sri Lanka to table a resolution at the upcoming UN Human Rights Council session and support a domestic process, Mr Malinowski said,

"The important thing is that there be a judicial process that is credible to the people of Sri Lanka and to the international community."

"For that process to be credible, I don’t think it has to be a completely international process, but it does have to be independent of political leadership."

"It has to be led by people who are trusted by the minority communities and it should have some degree of international involvement, even if it is a domestic process organized under the laws of Sri Lanka."

Mr Malinowski said in Colombo, in an earlier press conference, that,

“We support a domestic mechanism that will be credible to all of the affected communities in Sri Lanka... I would also add that international support for this process has been, and will continue to be important to building trust and confidence”.

The Tamil National Alliance will stand firm in their calls for an international investigation into Sri Lanka's war crimes, Northern Provincial Council chair C. V. K. Sivagnanam has said.

"Sri Lanka Army since the year 2013 has been investigating into the Channel-4 video contents upon directions given by then government."

"The objective of those investigations is to verify whether those were Army members."