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.
Sri Lanka's police force is said to have requested an arrest warrant for Sujeewa Serasinghe after his initial failure to appear in court, however the magistrates only reissued a notice for the MP to come before the Homagama court.
"According to normal procedure of the court, once a notice is issued if the accused does not appear before court, he should be arrested as the notice had been pasted on the door of his residence, but the Magistrate has only verbally asked the police to arrest MP Senasinghe without giving a written order. When the police requested the Magistrate to issue a warrant to arrest, he had instead issued a notice once again to appear on September 30," police spokesperson Ruwan Gunasekara said.