Mahinda’s links with Ubert and Jerome likely to be probed

By Easwaran Rutnam

Links between former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and controversial preachers Ubert Angel and Jerome Fernando is likely to be looked into as part of ongoing investigations launched by the authorities.

Fernando is being investigated over controversial statements he had made on Buddhism and other religions.

Investigators said that links between former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ubert Angel and Jerome Fernando will be looked into.

A complaint was lodged with the criminal investigations department over Prophet Jerome Fernando.

Uebert Angel, who was in Sri Lanka in 2020 and 2022, to meet Prophet Jerome Fernando, had been accused in Zimbabwe of offering to use his status to launder millions of dollars through a gold-smuggling scheme.

Angel, appointed ambassador-at-large and a presidential envoy by Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa in March 2021, told reporters he would be able to carry large volumes of dirty cash into the country using his diplomatic status.

An undercover operation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit) had said he would facilitate a scheme through which unaccounted cash could be exchanged for Zimbabwe’s gold. Recipients of the gold could then sell the precious metal for legitimate money, effectively turning their cash clean.

The 44-year-old, who claims to be a prophet and heads a congregation — the Good News Church — with branches in 15 countries, and his business partner Rikki Doolan also claimed that their laundering operations had the approval of Mnangagwa, who has been in power since November 2017, when Zimbabwe’s controversial former leader Robert Mugabe was ousted in a military coup. (Colombo Gazette)