Attending a news conference yesterday (07) Former Sri Lankan Ambassador to Russia Udayanga Weeratunga claimed he was smarter than the Yahapalana government that could not even serve indictments against him over the alleged MiG deal fraud.
“The Yahapalana government could not bring me down here at that time . I am smarter than them,” he said commenting on the case which he was implicated.
Udayanga Weeratunga was part of a deal signed between the Air Force and Ukrinmash, in June 2006 amounting to almost US $15 million to purchase MiG-27 Aircrafts for the Air Force.
In December 2006 it was exposed by the Sunday Times that the MiG aircraft purchased had cost US $2.4 million per plane, or double the price paid six years earlier per aircraft under the Chandrika Kumaratunga regime.
The aircraft that arrived in Sri Lanka in 2007 it was revealed were sold by Ukraine for less than US $1 million each, with the middle men of the deal allegedly more than doubling the price they charged the Sri Lanka Air Force and had pocketed the remaining US $1.4 million per aircraft.
